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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/125 sec, f/1.4, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
me
Ruining a Perfectly Good Piece of Steel
During our visit to Pierre Nadeau's smithy in the middle of nowhere of Japan's Wakayama Prefecture, Pierre let me have a go at smithing. He normally makes Japanese swords, but set the bar a little lower for my first try.
He grabbed a length of #3 rebar, which is round with pronounced ridges all along, and told me to square it. The instructions were as simple as the task: put the part you'll work on into the center of the forge and turn on the forge blower. Once the thing is red hot (but before it gets white hot), take it out, hold it at 90° to the anvil, and pound for all you're worth until it cools. Then repeat.
Once I said I understood, he said “okay, call me when you're done”, then he went off to work on the cold forging I posted about last month.
Zak kindly took photos with my camera.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Getting Fired up
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/125 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Lots of Pounding
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/125 sec, f/1.4, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
More Heat
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 cropped — 1/125 sec, f/1.4, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
More Pounding
I'd like to say that I was a smashing success, but I was pathetic. I'd pull the glowing bar from the fire and start pounding it flat on top, only to see it inexplicably deform to the side. Inexplicably. You can't explain that. So, I'd turn it on its side to pound out the deformation, only to see it deform further, in all three dimensions and perhaps a few I can't number. Trying to get the steel to act the way it was supposed to was like trying to herd cats, while blind. In a downpour. At night.
“How hard can it be?” I kept thinking, believing that I'd eventually get the hang of it. To his credit, Pierre refrained from laughing at me, mostly.
Furthermore, I now understood why Pierre had given me a choice between a light hammer and a lighter hammer. I scoffed at them both, taking the heavier of the two. It was very light, and I could swing deftly without the slightest bit of effort. At least at the beginning. My right arm was screaming a different tune after hundreds of swings. Of course, I kept a nonchalant tough-man attitude that I'm sure was most convincing.
In the end I should have had a nice square rod ending with a curved hook, but I ended up with something with the general shape and appeal of a snake that had been run over on the highway.
In private shame I laid down the hammer and the newly-minted junk I had just crafted, and retrieved my camera from Zak....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 14mm — 1/50 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Now Haunted
by my stunning display of ineptitude
While I was there, I took this shot of the automatic-pounder thing that I'd mentioned in the earlier posts, from the user's perspective. It was very dark, all the more because of the strongly-backlit situation, but after futzing around with it in Lightroom, I end up with a gritty industrial feeling that seems appropriate to a 100-year-old smithy...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 14mm — 1/50 sec, f/2.8, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
What am I?
Well, my previous “What am I?” Quiz went off with a fizzle, so I'll try a different one, a photo I took near the exquisite road-side weeds yesterday.
Story this quiz is taken from is continued here...
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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1600 sec, f/2.5, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Today's photos are sort of a combination of the softness we saw in “Exploring the Edge of Creamy Macro Bokeh with Lily of the Nile” with detail in “Exploring the Sharper Side of the Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5”. I was driving through the middle-of-nowhere mountains south-east of Kyoto with friends Shimada-san and Paul Barr, and when we stopped to check out a small shrine we happened upon, these clover(?) were right next to the car.
The shots above and below are almost identical (the flower is slightly further away in the shot above), but the effect is wildly different....
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1600 sec, f/2.5, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Focused a Smidgen Further In
The Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 was in heaven...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1600 sec, f/2.5, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1600 sec, f/2.5, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1600 sec, f/2.5, ISO 450 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1600 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
These are just some weeds near the car... you can barely even see the flowers in this wider shot...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/3200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Context
There was just something about the light and the grass in that area that was captivating...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Roadside Grass
...and among it were various dainty flowers...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dainty
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1600 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Detail
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
a bit busier than the first grass shot
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/800 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hoarding
For more context, here's a wider shot, with the car and the clover in the background, and the grass and other flowers in near the edge of the bridge guard rail...
Shimada-san checking out the same grass/flowers....
Paul doing the same, with the reason we stopped in the first place waiting in the background...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/400 sec, f/16, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
Just Checking the Light
with the 1,723-meter Minami Bisan-Seto Bridge in the background
between Honshu and Shikoku, Japan
On our short trip to Imabari a couple of months ago, after leaving the oddly-interesting Towel Museum we made our way back to Kyoto via the Great Seto Bridge, the collective name for a bunch of large double-decker (cars on top, trains below) bridges that span about six miles of the Seto Inland Sea between Shikoku and Honshu, the smallest and largest of the four islands that make up the bulk of Japan.
The route we took on the outward leg of the trip crossed to Shikoku via the much longer Shimanami Kaido, hopscotching over a bunch of fairly large islands for 30 miles, but today's series of bridges had only one island big enough for anything more than a pier, and on it was a small rest stop.
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1250 sec, f/4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Suspension Cable Cross Section
Anthony checked out the cross section for one of the suspension cables for one of the bridges, and was amazed as I explained how it all worked. The wire bundles are an even meter thick, with 29,718 individual strands each a fifth of an inch thick.
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Stats on the Bridge Cable
for one of the five bridges that make up the cross-water route
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/11, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
Strand Closeup
The suspension cable for this particular bridge runs 1,660 meters (a hair over a mile), so the strands in the pair of cables that make up that span, if laid end to end, would run more than 61,000 miles. That's a lot of wire.
(That's a lot of wire, but it's nothing compared to the cable for the third route across this particular sea, the Akashi Straights Bridge that I posted about in 2008, whose cable strands laid end to end would reach almost 190,000 miles.)
On a national holiday this rest area is filled to capacity, but it was almost empty while we were there, which was nice. This couple was enjoying the sights with their dog...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/4000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sunset Approaches
The day was extremely hazy with the kosa airborne sand I talked about in “Misty Evening in Rural Japan” and “Descending Into a Volcanic Crater”, so the approaching sunset took on an odd color.
Futzing around with these photos in Lightroom, I ended up with a stark B&W version of one of these that I sort of like...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/4000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Path
Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/400 sec, f/16, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
American Ninja
Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 240mm cropped — 1/500 sec, f/6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bridge of Distinctive Character
close of up a gold-painted「橋」(bridge) engraved in black marble
Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 290mm — 1/800 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Modes of Transport
Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/800 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Truck
Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/800 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Inter-Deck Access
likely for maintenance and emergencies
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/400 sec, f/16, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
Late Afternoon
Stylized
After a rest, we hit the road again, rising up from the island to the upper deck on a series of flyways connected by a 360° mid-air spiral...
This reminded me of the several similar mid-air loops we'd seen during our suspension-bridge bike ride the previous day, over a different set of bridges 50 miles away.
So, in now having taken all three routes to Shikoku in the last year (two routes during this trip, and last year the eastern Awaji route with its pair of big bridges, seen here and here), we've been on the eight longest suspension bridges in Japan.
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Anthony's friend Gen stayed over last night, so this morning they had an early start on play. They built a complex world of PlayRail and LEGO. It seems to involve rapelling Star Wars clones...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56mm — 1/200 sec, f/5, ISO 4000 — full exif
Gen's Bowl of Noodles
Actually, that one bowl of soumen was for all four of us, but before eating they hammed it up for the camera, at my request.
Then it was back to the LEGO / Star Wars / train play...
