It was, at times, a cold miserable day in Kyoto today, but there's something to be said for being in the right place at the right time.

The rain the rainbows were created in was being swept in low from the mountains to the left. (Fittingly, this area of Kyoto's name, Arashiyama, means "Tempest Mountain".) Anyway, lacking altitude, they're not one of those tall half circles like this or this. It was quite a squished curve, but what lacked for in height it made up in intensity.

The bird in this one is a nice touch, and a bit more [...]

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Here's a wigglegram (which I hereby dub in Japanese as「クネクネ写真」) from an outing a few days ago to the "Fallen Leaf Shrine" (岩戸落葉神社) in the mountains north of Kyoto.

That's at the same place as my first try at the whole "stereo photo" thing earlier this month, a vist first seen in "A Slightly Early Visit to Kyoto's Fallen-Leaf Shrine".

This subsequent visit is after an additional 11 days of leaf fall. Despite how beautiful they are, it's rare for a temple or shrine to let fallen leaves accumulate; they clean them every day or multiple times per day. But [...]

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/4.5, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos Garden-Viewing Room at the Daihouin Temple (妙心寺大法院) Kyoto, Japan Desktop-Background Versions 1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600  ·  2880×1800 Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/125 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos Green Tea and […]
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As I mentioned in this morning's post, I went on a drive to the northern mountains of Kyoto yesterday. Our first stop was the middle-of-nowhere Sourenji Temple (宗蓮寺).

It was cold and the light was lush. On the way from where we parked I snapped this picture, which unfortunately has a local farmer going by in his little truck and Paul Barr caught mid step, but the richness is almost unreal...

There were a bunch of very oddly pruned trees whose bottom half looked like large bonsai trees, with tall super-thin shoots doubling the height from there...

The style does [...]

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I stopped by the Koutouin Temple the other day, in the Daitokuji complex in north-central Kyoto. It wasn't quite peak of its fall-foliage colors, but it was quite. (I stopped by two years ago at a time when it was at the peak of color and it's quite nice then as well.)

One of my personal favorite photos comes from the first time I visited this temple, of a lady in kimono on this path.

Anyway, here's a wigglegram to give you more of a sense of the view...

And for good measure, here's a vertical-background view...

Sort of odd, [...]

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