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Now that I've finished up my posts about taking seven-year-old Anthony on his first real ski trip, I can get back to the story of our short New-Year's trip to Toyama Prefecture, a few hours' drive north of Kyoto.
My last post about the trip was the one-off “Deceptively Clear: Snow-Covered Mountains in Exquisite Detail”, but the ongoing story was in the middle of our second-day visit to picturesque Gokayama Village, where we'd left off having had some hot noodles at restaurant “Yohachi”.
To remind you, it was very snowy...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56 mm — 1/100 sec, f/11, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Abominable Snowboy
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/125 sec, f/10, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Quaint
Cold, but quaint
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 27 mm — 1/125 sec, f/10, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Proud Papa
with “pu-chan”, his baby snowball baby
Anthony decided to pretend a snowball was a baby and he was the daddy. The snowball was named “pu-chan” (“little pu”).
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/800 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Heading Back to the Car
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/640 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Pause To Attend To Pu-Chan
he's finding out that babies can be heavy, and attention intensive
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/1000 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Exit Stage Left
To the tunnel entrance
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm — 1/1600 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Saying Bye-Bye to Pu-Chan and Gokayama Village
in what remains of the chair he'd made an hour and a half earlier
We got back up to the car, brushed off a couple of inches of snow, and took the snow-white almost-deserted turnpike south for 10 slow miles to our next destination. After exiting the toll booth, I paused to snap some picture...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 44 mm — 1/1250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Turnpike Toll Both
The actual highway we'd taken was more like the left lanes in this photo. The well-worn right lane is the exit, and I'm guessing it's got so much more traffic due to people coming from the opposite direction deciding that this is a good place to get off the highway. This exit is the first after a long 8-mile tunnel through the mountains to the south, so perhaps those heading north got a surprise they weren't expecting upon exit from the tunnel, and decided to bail.
This is also the location where I took the last two photos in my “Shutter Speed's Effect on Falling Snow” post a few weeks ago.
For completeness, here's the view from the same spot looking down the exit off-ramp, which descends sharply down the mountain to a river valley below....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/800 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
A Whole World of Winter-Wonderland Driving Fun
The morning drive had started snowy, and now just after lunch it was much worse.... but there was more to come. Much, much more...
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We still have freezing temperatures here in Kyoto, but down on Amami island in the far south of Japan, they've got cherry blossoms. Earnest Barr has some wonderful cherry-blossom shots on his blog lately, with blossoms with a glow, another with bird n' blossoms, and possibly my favorite, “Honcha Pass” on this post.
Highly recommended.
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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Batter's Up!
This is the final installment about taking Anthony skiing, where we he skied for the first time, and together we did lots of sledding, and had fun watching others sled and crash. As the day was winding to a close, a mini snowball fight turned into batting practice....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 44 mm — 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Direct Hit!
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 44 mm — 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Home Run
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — 1/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Probably Wishes He Missed This One
two words: face · splatter
I'm sure I made a comical sight taking these shots. Normally when I take shots while pitching to him (something I've done several times, but apparently have never posted) I normally hold the camera in the right hand and pitch with the left, but for whatever reason I didn't do that this time. Rather, I held the camera in my left hand, arm curled underneath and hand wrapped comically up and around to just reach the shutter-release button. This allowed my right hand to be free to lob the snowballs.
On the way back to the car, we passed through a small area used for overnight camping...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 31 mm — 1/160 sec, f/8, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Snowy Campsite
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 31 mm — 1/160 sec, f/8, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Rugged Outdoors
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 36 mm — 1/160 sec, f/4.5, ISO 280 — map & image data — nearby photos
Too Chilly For My Tastes
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 36 mm — 1/200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Messy-Haired Rosy-Cheek Boy
enjoying a can of warm corn potage drink
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Messy-Haired Me
Photo by Anthony Friedl
My hair felt much more messy, so much so that I was disappointed when we got home and I found that it looked so tame in the photo. At the time, it felt as messy as Anthony's hair looked during lunch (which is to say crazy-wild hat-hair messy).
The return home was somewhat crazy too, with lots of delays because people without snow tires would find they got stuck on a hill and would just stop, blocking the lane. Even a big-rig truck stopped this way, on a fairly steep hill, and cars with snow tires could pass only when the oncoming traffic allowed, which was not often. The car a few in front of me tried to pass, and fishtailed all over the place, but it must have been because he didn't have snow tires, because the car in front of me, and I, had no problems (because I learned my lesson about snow tires two years ago).
Then there were the folks on the two-lane highway doing 15mph where 50mph was the reasonably safe speed, blocking everyone in a long moving traffic jam. Sigh.
We finally made it home, and within five minutes Anthony was sound asleep for a well-earned rest.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 66 mm — 1/500 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Multi-Generational Sledding
I've got a nasty cold so no energy for a proper post. Here's a pair of photos from sledding with Anthony, of two others we encountered on the slope.
Unlike the “others enjoying the slopes” pics I put on my earlier post, there's not much action evident in the photo above, but one can imagine it well enough when also seeing the shot taken two seconds earlier...
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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/640 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Two Seconds Earlier
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Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 30 mm — 1/40 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Giouji Temple
Kyoto Japan
Flipping around in my image library while doing some Lightroom testing, I came across an image that I happen to see fullscreen, and was wowed by it much more than a small-sized view would have led me to expect. I'd published it before (two and a half years ago in “A Few Unremarkable Fern Pictures”), but with desktop-image sizes, so I thought I'd go ahead and do that today.
It's from a trip a couple of years ago to Giouji Temple, images from which have appeared many times on this blog... if you're interested, check out the “nearby photos” link for more.