This post is a few more shots following on from "Quick Peek from Kyoto’s Aoi Matsuri", about one of Kyoto's main "period costumes" festivals, the Aoi Matsuri festival (葵祭; at Wikipedia).

Of course, where you have horses on parade, you have...

Continued here...

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The Aoi Matsuri festival (葵祭; at Wikipedia), one of Kyoto's big three festivals, was held the other day, and I stopped by for the first time in many years to photograph the folks in period (circa 1000AD) costumes.

A cursory scan of the initial photos shows that I missed focus on most of the shots taken with the Nikkor 300mm f/2 with a 1.4X TC, so I'll have to look into whether the camera or my technique needs an adjustment. In the shot above, the gravel shows the plane of focus is well behind the kids. )-:

The biggest problem [...]

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Dipping into my archives from last October, I realize that I haven't yet posted much about the Kurama Fire Festival (鞍馬の火祭り) that I briefly mentioned at the time, and a bit in my shooting-with-two-bodies post.

One reason that I haven't posted is that the photos are not very good (taken haphazardly handheld while not really knowing what was going on), but it's quite the different kind of festival, so it's worth a quick look.

The village of Kurama is long and narrow, wedged into a valley in the mountains of northern Kyoto. During this festival, fires and people are everywhere, [...]

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Today's post is part four on the Haradanien Garden (原谷苑) in north-western Kyoto (prior parts: one, two, three, and a bonus couple photo shoot). Today's simple post includes three more wigglegrams, adding to those in part three and my first post from the garden.

Another Area of the Garden with someone crouching for a shot (the branch is waving to you) Damien in the garden

To be continued...

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This post is a continuation earlier parts of "Kyoto’s Amazing Haradanien Garden", where in part one I introduced the location, and in part two I explained how it's wonderful even though it's quite crowded.

Folks wanting a couple shot would usually ask someone walking by to take it, but the couple above use a timer. (I tried to get the camera in focus and missed it badly, but I still like the vibe of the shot.)

As I mentioned in part two, the layout of the garden -- criss-crossing paths wandering on a hillside punctuated by dense foliage -- makes [...]

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