As I mentioned yesterday in "Rich Colors: A Good Start to an Amazing Day in Kyoto", I started a wonderful day of exploration and photography with a visit to the Gioji Temple (祇王寺) in western Kyoto.

In keeping with my "spray and pray" approach to photography 🙂 I ended up taking almost 600 photos over the course of the day, but maybe my approach is not quite as unskilled as I thought, because most of my shots came out nicely. Or maybe Gioji is just that photogenic and inspiring.

So, as somewhat of an exercise in showing my thought process [...]

I had the most amazing day of photographic and gastronomic discovery today, so much so that a month's worth of blog posts won't do it justice. During the day I took off to the mountains of western Kyoto with a friend, and in the evening met other friends for an all-you-can eat (all-you-can-drink!) BBQ buffet. A truly wonderful day.

I barely had time to glance at some of the photos from the mountains before having to run off to the BBQ, but the colors above caught my eye. It has no post processing except white balance (which I set via [...]

I mentioned the other day in "Happy Ordination Anniversary (54!) to Kyoto Institution Fr. Graham McDonnell" that I'd come across a weird flower, and was quickly informed (both here and on Google Plus; not a word from Facebook, where my blog-post notices never elicit a comment) that it was the flower from a passion-fruit vine.

The shape of the flower apparently lends the "Passion" to its English name, summoning images of the Passion of Christ.

The Japanese name seems to come from the same construction, though along a different path: tokeisou (時計草) means "Watch Plant"

It looks to be a [...]

I really don't care to use the iPhone camera, much less share the photos it produces, but when it's all you've got, it's all you've got. I occasionally have lunch with Roman Catholic priest Fr. Graham McDonnell ("Father Mac"), and as we were about to start our salads, he remembered that it was the anniversary of his ordination. 54 years.

During WWII he was in the US Navy as a radar repair engineer, then he spent nine years in seminary, and a year later, in 1960, came to Kyoto and has been here since.

He's been on my blog a [...]

Two months ago I posted about a visit to Suntory's Yamazaki whisky distillery a ways south of Kyoto. After that tour was done, we (Paul Barr and I) hopped into a taxi for the 10 minute ride to hit the tour at Suntory's beer brewery, in Nagaokakyo city, an area where I happened to have lived in the mid 90s.

Unlike the old distillery, which is full of sweet aroma and deep, rich photogenic character at every turn, the beer brewery is a bastion of modern sterile industrial design, featuring all the warmth and character of the inside of a [...]