Warning: this post may induce epileptic seizures and/or other random brain dysfunction.

I mentioned in my previous post that I'm not generally a fan of the wide-angle lens, so I find the photo above somewhat annoying, but also somewhat attractive. I can't decide.

The next two items likely fall into the same category for many folks.... two-frame animated GIFs that give a “3D viewer” feeling, like those old image-pair glasses we had as kids...

I've long noticed that when flipping among images in Lightroom, sometimes I get a momentary 3D stereo feeling when adjacent images are almost identical except for a slight horizontal displacement (like our two eyes' horizontal displacement), and while at the shrine yesterday, decided to finally take some shots with this processing in mind.

So, I swayed gently from side to side while keeping one point in the center of the frame, and once I had a nice smooth pattern, snapped a shot on either end of the sway. Then at home I loaded the two images into Photoshop, did some web searches on “how to make an animated GIF in Photoshop”, and minutes later was done.

I learn now that Wikipedia refers to this technique as “wiggle stereoscopy”, which seems a perfectly appropriate name.

Here's one more:

I don't like that the animation can't be easily control by the reader on an image-by-image basis (for example, I don't like that the animation is on by default... it's jarring to the reader not expecting it, so I'd prefer to have it start only when requested), so if I ever do this again, I'll likely dispense with the animated GIFs and build a JavaScript/Sprite approach (which means that I'll probably build a Lightroom plugin to make them). We'll see.

So, what do you think?

Continued with the next step in the evolution, here...

Paul Barr arrived in Kyoto last night for the fall-foliage season, and so today for our first outing we made a return trip to the aptly-named Ochiba Jinja (落葉神社), meaning “fallen-leaf shrine”. This is my (our) second trip, the first having been documented two years ago in “Carpet of Yellow Deep in the Mountains of North-West Kyoto”.

The first trip had been on a Dec 2, two weeks later in the season than our trip today, so most of the leaves that time had already fallen; this time most were still on the trees, and the color hadn't even fully turned. We'll have to pay another visit next week.

Still, it was nice.

I'm not a big fan of wide-angle lenses, but I brought the 14-24mm zoom along on this trip and forced myself to give it a try.

Mostly I didn't care for the results with the wide-angle lens, but I'm in a silly mood this evening while looking them over, so here are a few shots with some pretty-far-out stylized processing...

I eventually got rid of the 14-24mm and moved to my favorite lens, the Voigtländer 125mm, which quickly found a moss-covered rock strewn with leaves and such...

I've still got plenty more photos to go through, mostly with the Voigtländer and a 50mm, but for the most part I didn't feel too photographically inspired on this trip (though the visit was quite enjoyable in its own right). I think part of the problem is that I just didn't have good enough equipment to take advantage of the situation. Others came better prepared...

Continued here...

A belated continuation of our recent visit to Naoshima Island and its artsy Benesse House hotel/museum two weeks ago.

While packing the car to go home, I came across a lone piece of tiny colorful vine that had somehow found its way to the sidewalk. Ever since I took this pic six years ago, I've been a fan of vines like this.

I loved the shape of this tiny island (Oozuchi Island) four miles distant (also seen here in my first post). According to Wikipedia, it's less than 30 acres (1/20th of a square mile), but rises to an elevation of 171m.

While we waited for the ferry to the mainland, we checked out the (somewhat famous?) “red pumpkin”....

One of the main points of interest at the Kongorinji Temple (金剛輪寺) are the many jizou (地 蔵) statues. I give a more-detailed introduction in “Deep Sorrow at the Kongourinji Temple’s Path of Jizou” from two years ago when I wrote about this path after my first visit, but in short: these statues were placed by parents who lost a child, as a form of prayer that the child will find an easy path to heaven.

Each statue is unique, and has a hand-sewn bib, a colorful pinwheel, and the engraved name of a child.

Before you get to the first jizou statue, you've already enjoyed some fine paths and foliage; turning a corner at an outlying temple building brings you to this sight:

When I made my visit a week ago, the leaves had only barely started to turn, but one brilliant orange tree (seen in the background in the photo above) marked the start of what I call the “path of sorrow”...

The light was a bit richer a few hours later...

Every statue along the path is engraved with a number. The two statues flanking the path outside the gate are numbered #999 and #1000...

The framing is poor in that shot because I was leaning way out over a stream, trying to get a shot blind by holding the camera as far out as I could.

My blind aim was off, but I somehow like the shot anyway. It seems more interesting than this more traditional framing made from the other side of the stream...

The path rises up the mountain at a fairly brisk pace, but the lower part is at least relatively even...

Damien Douxchamps had shown me some excellent temples in Kyoto a couple of days prior (the photos from which I haven't really had the chance to look yet), so this time I was introducing him to one.

Damien's excellent photos from this visit are already online, here.

I was forever making Damien wait, such as to pause for a reverse-angle shot like this:

The top of the stairs in the far background is where I was standing when I took “Photographing Nothing” on yesterday's post, of Damien photographing some super tiny flowers.

I neglected to look for statue #1, but I'm sure it was at the base of the stairs.

The thousand statues lining the path are impressive (and sorrowful) enough, but that's just the beginning. Flanking the path on either side are large expanses of unnumbered jizou...

To be continued...

A few more shots from the other day's visit to the Kongorinji Temple (金剛輪寺) in Shiga, an hour's drive from Kyoto.

I had brought my computer to do some processing on the road, and while I was trying some “artsy” processing of the photo above (or, at least, the original of what eventually became the photo above) because the original was dull and boring and just not working, I was about to give up and delete it when someone glanced over my shoulder and proclaimed how much she liked it, and why she liked it (the three colors and three states of the three leaves, she said, brought to mind the stages in life).

So I cropped it appropriately to her view, and here we are.

As you can see, the leaves are only starting to turn.

At one point we came upon some extremely delicate flowers (much tinier even than those that appeared in my previous post, “Very Tiny Flowers Among the Moss at the Kongorinji Temple”), and in the photo above, Damien is attempting to photograph them.

I don't know whether he got anything good, but my attempts follow...

Continued here...