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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Breakfast is (Self) Served
at the Atta Terrace Hotel, Okinawa Japan, January 2009
Just getting started with passion fruit, sweet potato, some local bitter greens, and more...
We're preparing for a short trip into snow country, packing warm coats and gloves and such for a few days of what will mostly be Anthony snow play. I'm quite looking forward to it, but am also reminded that our New Year's trip a year ago was to the warmer climate of the Okinawan mainland, staying at the Atta Terrace Hotel.
The trip was just two nights, yet among the half dozen posts I wrote soon after, I wasn't able to get around to posting anything from the third day, and barely touched on what we did the second. So I'll catch up just a bit with our first breakfast on Okinawa...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 28 mm — 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Breakfast Buffet
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm — 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Mmmm, Cheese and Tomato
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm — 1/160 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Choice Table
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 27 mm — 1/2500 sec, f/4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Choice View
( that would have been nicer if the weather had cooperated )
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Ready to Eat
photo by a passing member of the hotel staff
Facing the pool from the side was a lounge / library / bar kind of place, that I thought was photogenic...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/125 sec, f/16, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Lounge / Library / Bar Kind of Place
The attention to detail was evident at the hotel with the little table-top floral pieces. A year ago I used examples from this room to fill a post titled “Japanese Attention to Presentation”.
Here's a small one that was on each table...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — 1/125 sec, f/8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Refined
Here's a big one on an end table near the bar, stylized with pumped-up brightness and a white vignette ...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Color
( would look better if my blog color theme were white )
We then started our only full day on Okinawa with a drive on which we found some New Year's cherry blossoms, explored tiny and rural Kouri Island and its photogenic late-afternoon sun, then toward dusk I took advantage of the low light prowess of my Nikon D700 to capture a shot of a lonely little island the size of a haystack in light so dark and gloomy that I shouldn't have even bothered trying. But I did try, and emboldened with the results, returned to the photogenic hotel to really try pushing the limits of low-light photography.
All in all, it was a great day (remember, a good breakfast starts a good day!), but I've still not gotten around to posting about the best part. I guess that'll have to wait a few days until we get back from our snowy trip...
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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 26 mm — 1/100 sec, f/9, ISO 1100 — full exif
Four Generations
95-year-old Misao with her son (and his wife), granddaughter, and great grandson
I discovered a great way to get a fun group portrait this morning: carefully set up camera on tripod, turn on a self timer set to take a picture every second, make final delicate focus adjustments, announce you're ready to run and join the picture, than loudly bump the whole setup as you clumsily move away. Feign look of shocked “oops”. Everyone laughs. Interval timer takes picture. Hope the bump didn't ruin the shot.
I did that for this shot this morning, except for the whole “on purpose” and “feign” thing. I like the result.
Anthony's mom's dad's 95-year-old mom made a visit for the New Year. She arrived last night in time for a traditional osechi New Year's dinner.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — 1/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1800 — full exif
Anthony Receives Otoshidama
a traditional New Year's gift to kids
(five bucks... he was in heaven)
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 66 mm — 1/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — full exif
Simple Decoration
cover of one of the food boxes
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1250 — full exif
Lots To Chose From
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — full exif
Trying Some Still-Steaming Bread
baked by yours truly
( in a bread machine... makes me feel so “bakey” )
We broke out a gift of private-label sake we'd received from a professional-chef friend. He deals only in the very finest things... previous gifts have included both the priceless (matsutake mushrooms) and the pricey (melons). Fumie's grandmother ran a liquor shop in Osaka for 50+ years, so this caught her eye.
She's 95 years old and physically frail, but can still navigate the stairs in her two-story house. Mentally, she seems pretty darn sharp. Here's an example...
Fumie's dad grew up thinking his birthday was Oct 30th, until when he was a teenager filing some kind of paperwork with city hall, he found out that his birthday was recorded as Oct 31st. Returning home to report this to his folks, she said at the time “oh, I probably just forgot the date”. Doh! Anyway, fast forward 45 or so years to last night, and Fumie's dad was sort of ribbing her about the Oct 31st mistake, which she deflected with a dry “that year didn't have that date”. I guess you had to be there, but the delivery was hilarious.. sort of a dismissive but loving “child, you don't know what you're talking about” deadpan that caused everyone else to erupt in laughter while she returned to her food.
It may have been mis-recorded by the government, but it's equally likely that she indeed just didn't remember back then. Japan immediately after the war was not a place of ease or plenty. “Maternity leave” started when labor started, and indeed, Fumie's grandmother was working the fields when labor started on or around Oct 30th. Maternity leave ended not long after labor ended, so I'm sure she had to defer work on the baby scrapbook to concentrate on little things like feeding the family. It was a time of pain, suffering, and sacrifice — that's part of all motherhood — during an era of pain, suffering, and sacrifice. I live in a time of easy and plenty, but I can't remember what year it is without checking the computer, so I don't begrudge her a day or two back then.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 52 mm — 1/80 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400 — full exif
More Otoshidama!
from Fumie's folks, along with a big coin-shaped disk of chocolate
From the “and now something completely different” department, we pulled out a gag gift from Mommy...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 58 mm — 1/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO 900 — full exif
Here's Looking at You, Kid
She's Anthony's last surviving great grandparent, though he did get to meet Fumie's mom's mom before she passed, as can be seen in this other “Four Generations” shot.
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Saw Avatar today. It was amazing. First movie I've seen in a Japanese theater in 10+ years.
Was worth the wait.
Amazing on all levels. Some complain that the basic story concept is not original, and that's true, but that doesn't mean that a well-told story is not well told. The original Star Wars somehow managed to get past the “just another good vs. evil story” gauntlet, and Avatar gets by the “Just another Dances With Wolves” gauntlet for me.
The last movie that I saw more than once in a theater was Top Gun in 1986. I'll definitely be looking to see Avatar on the big screen again.
I just wish Japanese subtitling was better. The non-English parts of a Hollywood movie (that are subtitled in English when shown in America) are shown in Japan only in Japanese, way over at the far side of the screen, using a very weird and (for me) difficult-to-read font. Like subtitles anywhere, they fly by at faster than the speed of sound. (The speed that they appear is inversely proportional to your skill in reading the language.) So, I think missed some of the more subtle points of the plot along the way.
Still, it was totally amazing.
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Our 2010 New Year's Card
Japanese culture has people sending New Year's cards en masse just before the end of the year, with Japan Post holding them until the morning of January First, at which point they then deliver them in accumulated bundles to households across Japan.
The card above is what we sent this year, with pictures from:
- Anthony Starts First Grade
- Anthony's Shichi-Go-San Hakama Portrait
- Visit to Tokyo Disneyland: the Second Day
- Anthony's First Grade-School Sports Festival
- Growing Up Quickly: Off To First Grade On His Own
- Anthony's First Ski Experience
- Anthony's First Solo Outing
- Quicky Passport-Photo Photo Session
and our trip to Ohio in the summer.
Fumie came up with the design, and I implemented it in Photoshop. It's an easy design... the hard part is picking the photos to include from the 18,775 that I have from 2009. (It was certainly a lot less work than this Photoshop work I did for a friend four years ago, and remain proud of even though I think I could do much better today.)
Because it falls so close to Christmas, we use the same design for our Christmas Card, just replacing the Japanese with English...
Our Christmas 2009 Card
We didn't send New Year's cards a year ago because you don't send or receive them in a year you've suffered a death in the family (Fumie's maternal grandmother passed away in April of last year), so last year we had only a Christmas Card:
Our Christmas 2008 Card
From the archives: our New Year's cards for: 2008, 2007, and 2006.
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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/250 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
“October Cherry”
blooming in Kyoto, late November 2009
My fall-foliage photos always seem out of season compared with the rest of the world, Kyoto not getting its color until mid November after much of the Northern Hemisphere's autumn has passed. In line with that, this post features an out-of-season element in an out-of-season photo: cherry blossoms in late November.
Five minutes away from my place, buried back in the mountains of eastern Kyoto, is the small Himukai Shrine, featured in “Thatched Roofs and Colored Canopies” and “Changing Seasons, Changing Lenses” earlier this month. Among the spectacular colors I didn't even notice the lone blooming cherry tree off to one side until it was pointed out to me.
Its decidedly delicate presence can be seen, if given the proper attention, at the far left of this shot from the parking lot:
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/400 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Stairs Up to the Himukai Shrine
At the far right, you can see part of the Gate of Disrepair.
I knew that cherry can bloom in January.... in Okinawa, where Spring arrives after Summer hasn't really left. I never knew that there is a variety of cherry blossom that blooms in the fall/winter, but there you have it.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
十月桜
“October Sakura”
Kyoto University “Himukai” (name of the shrine) Club, March 15 2007
Despite the Japanese name 十月桜 (jyuugatuzakura, “October Sakura”), they apparently bloom through January, and again for a short time in the Spring (when the rest of the cherry blossoms boom). I'd never heard of such a thing. According to this page, the scientific name is Prunus subhirtella cv. Autumnalis.