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 [...]

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.

Here's a desktop-background version with framing I like better:

That was the last photo I took on Saturday. Sort of in keeping with the timeline nature of my recent "was a busy November!" post, I'll show my first photo from the day, taken from a bridge after a hurried stop and fighting to cross traffic to get to the appropriate side of the bridge in time:

This was 2½ hours earlier (and 1.6km south) from the intense rainbow that I posted the other day.

Continued here...

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 [...]