You probably can't see the cute little stick bug unless you know what you're looking for....

Continuing in yesterday's vein of revisiting old outings, this one goes back to late in last year's cherry-blossom season where I came across a little stick bug.

He eventually wandered off to a leaf...

A pair of blossom shots, sans bug...

The shot above is similar to this one of a less-bloomed blossom. I tend to try that kind of edge-on shot with this lens (a Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5), with other examples that come to mind including this, this, and this. The one above [...]

I've posted only the tiniest fraction of recent photos that I want to post, and today I'm making a slight dent in the backlog by revisiting the photogenic day last December that yielded "Intense Rainbow Over Arashiyama" and its longer followup, and also "Pretty and Colorful Public Path in Arashiyama", a post that highlighted the first and last shots of that day's outing.

The rainbow/mountain scene above was taken a few minutes after the aforementioned first shot of the outing. I prefer the ultra-widescreen view that the "first shot" has, but wanted to have something for my desktop background, so [...]

This is the third (and final) post about the annual lightup event in the bamboo forest of the Aarashiyama area of Kyoto, which I went to on a windy, sleety night a couple of weeks ago. (See earlier part 1 and part 2.)

The photo collected the many flashes of others' cameras during the 30-second exposure. Here's a crop from the center of the shot above...

I tried a quick shot directly of one of the lanterns, which ended up as one might expect, detail in the bright light completely blown out. Still, somehow the result appeals to me...

It's [...]

I'm finally getting around to posting some more shots of the Arashiyama (area of Kyoto) evening bamboo lightup (京都嵐山竹やぶの花灯路) from a week or two ago. (I'd posted one shot that evening.)

It was just above freezing, with blustery wind and occasional rain/sleet. Not really a pleasant environment, but it kept the crowds down during the main event to simply "very crowded".

This lady stood there for the longest time, staring at me with a blank "what is that thing?" look on her face. On the outside I just stood there next to my camera on a tripod... looking like a [...]

Had a cold for a few days, recovered, and today spent 10 hours on a 1,000-photo outing to Nara and now feel almost as exhausted as I did when I had the cold. Time for some sleep.