I mentioned the other day in "Massive Support Column at Nara's Todai-ji Temple" about a recent photo trip to Nara, an hour's train ride south of Kyoto. I made the trip with Kyoto photographer friend Aeron, who besides being a great photographer is also seriously photogenic (I mean, really, just look at that smile), so along the way I took the opportunity to try some very impromptu portraits.

And when I say "impromptu", I don't mean something like these from five years ago where I spent 15 minutes, or these from six months ago whee I spent a couple of [...]

I'm pretty tired today, so just a few simple shots from a trip to Kyoto's Shisendo Temple (詩仙堂) a month ago. These are from the same outing that produced "Portrait Practice Among the Fall Colors".

I can't decide whether I like the shot above or the shot below better, so I'll just put them both.

The focus on both is a small bunch of dainty purple flowers amid some bamboo grass...

I don't know why this was done, but my guess is to provide a form of frost protection for the bulbs, using the plants own leaves wrapped ornamentally.

A few random pretty pictures from various outings last year. If you're interested in the context for the shot, or other pictures from the same area, see the "nearby photos" link under for photos and posts from the same location.

November was a busy month for photo outings for me here in Kyoto. I took 8,954 photos during the month, though perhaps 1,500 of those were in the pursuit of wigglegrams. Still, that leaves about 7,500 to wade through, a task I will probably never complete.

Here's one photo from each place I went with the camera during the month, in chronological order. The "nearby photos" link under each photo brings you to other photos taken in the same area, perhaps on the same outing as the photo in question, or from other outings throughout the seasons...

I'm going to [...]

Ce post de blog est pour les parents de Damien Douxchamps, parce que Damien ne leur envoie pas assez de photos de lui-même.

This blog post is for Damien Douxchamps' parents in Belgium, because Damien, who has lived in Japan for the last eight years, doesn't send enough pictures of himself.

For the most part, Japanese reflexively flash a peace sign when a camera is pointed at them, something that drives most non-Japanese insane, so in the shot above, Damien is mimicking this to spoil my shot. Interestingly, though, he's doing it for exactly the same underlying reason that I [...]