I recently met Paul Barr and a pair of married friends of his for lunch, and we ended up taking the opportunity to visit the Haradanien Garden (原谷苑) in north-west Kyoto for a quick couple photoshoot.

It's still on my list to do a proper blog post about the place (update: it's here), from my visit last week from which so far I've posted only one wigglegram, but it's a daunting prospect because the site is incomparably wonderful. Anyway, you'll see a bit of the site in these pictures today.

It was John and Ai's first visit, so initially we [...]

I paid another visit today to the outstanding Haradanien Garden (原谷苑) in north-western Kyoto, where the wigglegram ("3D photo") I posted the other day was taken. Today's visit was to do some portraiture with some very photogenic friends, but first a quick post of a small cluster of blossoms (of the millions at the garden) that caught my eye.

To give a sense of context, here's Paul Barr at the same tree...

Continued here...

I made my first visit the other day to the Haradanien Garden (原谷苑) in northwest of Kyoto, a few kilometers into the mountains beyond Kinkakuji ("the Golden Pavilion"). It was, without question, the most amazing place to see blossoms (cherry and others) that I'd ever been, by orders of magnitude. "Stunning", "Awesome", and other overused platitudes don't do it justice, at least when at the peak of season when I visited.

It's been a while since I've done a wigglegram, so even though I've not yet gone over the photos from the visit, I went ahead and grabbed out enough [...]

It's been a busy few days since I posted "Weeping Cherry at Kyoto’s Ryouanji Temple (龍安寺)". I came down with a cold, my wife performed in a local production of Swan Lake, and I recovered from my cold, in that unfortunate order. No time to even look at the photos from the other day beyond a quick glace at the top of the stack, so here are a few more from the start of that outing...

After all the buds and blossoms I posted last month (such as here, here, and here), I told myself I'd concentrate more on shots [...]

I spent most of the day at the Ryouanji Temple (龍安寺) in northwest Kyoto, which I often visit in the fall for its spectacular autumn scenery. I think today was my first visit during cherry-blossom season.

I was tickled to discover that the "weeping cherry" (シダレ桜) at the west end of the property were spectacular, both pink and white. Best earlier in the day... by noon the light was too harsh.

I haven't looked at the photos yet, but while flying through the grid of 881 shots to mark color-checker shots as part of my import routine, I thought this [...]