Since the beginning of summer I've changed my food lifestyle to generally avoid carbs... I don't eat rice, potatoes, breads, fruits, desserts, etc., unless it would be socially inconvenient. (If I'm with friends and everyone's in the mood for pizza, I'll go and enjoy pizza.) It's worked out really well for me (I took these self portraits not long after starting) and by finding low-carb things I like, have not really felt cravings, or that I'm missing out or sacrificing. It's a lifestyle, not a temporary diet.

But today I fell off the wagon because I made the mistake of [...]
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Continuing from the other day's "First Look at the Ultra Modern (as in "Modern Art") Benesse House Museum Art”, a few shots from yesterday...

Not sure whether this is the susuki that I like (seen often on my blog, as of late here, here, here, here, and here), but it's certainly pretty.

To be continued...

We're on a three-day weekend trip to Naoshima (直島), an island just off the coast of Okayama, about four hours' drive south-west from Kyoto.

We're staying at Benesse House, a modern-art museum and hotel.

That bridge is the subject of this post from a year and a half ago.

The hotel doubles as a modern-art museum. Modern art is not my cup of tea at all, but this place feels more like I'm in a video game (Doom, circa 20 years ago), so it's actually fun.

Apparently, the Big Squash is a famous landmark. You can see it jutting [...]

Kyoto friend Zak Braverman was asked by his friend, pottery artisan Koji Kamada, to take photos of some recent pieces. Knowing I'm into photography, and of late trying to up my game on artificial lighting, Zak kindly invited me along.

I prepared everything I imagined I would need for, well, what I imagined I would be shooting, but upon arrival I quickly realized that my imagination differed significantly from reality, and we were totally unprepared. Specifically, I was unprepared for 1) the need for dark backgrounds instead of white, and 2) pottery that had direct reflections, like a mirror.

We [...]

I did something yesterday that I'd never done: I went out shooting with two camera bodies.

I often go out shooting with one body and many lenses, changing lenses upwards of 70 times on a long and interesting outing, and this works well for what I like to do, but when I added the Nikon D4 to my Nikon D700 at the start of the summer, I specifically thought it might be nice to have two bodies when out among the festive crowds at Kyoto's Gion Matsuri festival, one body with the huge Nikkor 300mm f/2, and another with a [...]