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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/5000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Row, Row, Row Your Boat...

I'm not sure which is worse.... being sick for a week, or, after getting better, having to face the mountain of email and work that accumulated during that time. (And how is it that a month's worth of stuff can accumulate in just eight days???)

Here are some more photos from our trip to my folks' place in Ohio during the summer, following along after previous posts “Hosing Down a Dirty Boat”, “Boat Ride for Anthony and Josh”, and “Grace and Luke's Turn in the Boat”. In this installment, Anthony and I went out in the boat with my sister, with Anthony taking a try at rowing...

Konica-Minolta Maxxum 7D @ 28 mm — ¹/800 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Learning the Basics
photo by Marci Kreta

Konica-Minolta Maxxum 7D @ 28 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/5, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Not as Easy as it Looks
photo by Marci Kreta

Konica-Minolta Maxxum 7D @ 28 mm — ¹/2000 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Taking a Breather
photo by Marci Kreta

I got my camera out as he gave it another try...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Giving Another Go

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/4000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Still Somewhat of a Challenge

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/4000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Not Exactly as Fun as He Envisioned

Konica-Minolta Maxxum 7D @ 28 mm — ¹/800 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Why yes, now that you mention it,
Bubbles are Much More Fun
photo by Marci Kreta

As with the floating fluffy seed in “Santa-Clause Wishes, and Photography Practice”, I used the floating bubbles to practice some on-the-move manual focusing....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bubble

I'm not exactly sure whether a floating soap bubble has much definition to appear sharp in the first place, but this one looks pretty good to me. Here's a full-resolution crop of the bubble, on the surface of which you can see the clouds, lake, and the clouds reflected in the lake...

full-resolution crop

At the far left, you can even see the tree on the island.

Tomorrow morning should have a bit of excitement, as Typhoon #18 is forecast to cut close by, and it's apparently a bruiser. We're totally safe here, so I'm just looking forward to the dynamic weather. (Having grown up in Ohio, I really enjoy a good thunderstorm, but they're rare in Kyoto, so I'll have to make do with a typhoon.)

There's been a light rain on and off all day, with not the slightest hint of a breeze until recently. As I started to write this post, the wind really whipped up into a major frenzy, doing the kindness of pointing out the location of every single piece of paper in my office that is not nailed down. (I've got the door to the balcony open so I can enjoy the sound of the rain.)

But now as I finish up, the mild rain continues, but the wind is completely gone.

The typhoon is forecast to cut through this area tomorrow morning around 7am. By noon it'll probably be clear and sunny, with the exceptionally clean air that often follows a typhoon, so I'm planning to head up to the Shougunzuka Overlook and am hoping for some great shots of Kyoto's valley. We'll see.

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 160 mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Anthony's Running Form
almost seven years old

After a week with a most unpleasant cold, I finally felt better this weekend, just in time for the sports festival at Anthony's school. Now that he's in first grade participating with 500 kids from K1-6, it's a much bigger event than when he was in kindergarten, and the emphasis has switched from the mere enjoyment of participation to teamwork.

First on the agenda of the all-day affair was one of the few non-teamwork events, a 60-meter dash for the first graders....

D700 + 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm, cropped — ¹/1600 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Out of the Blocks
staggered start

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
First Corner

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/1250 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Breaking the Tape
winning his heat of six runners, scoring a point for the blue team

There was also a first-grade obstacle course, involving things like riding a tricycle and scooting a short distance on your butt with a skateboard. Anthony was leading his heat until the skateboard did him in, and so he was behind entering the hurdles...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 160 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Steeplechase

The lead photo of the post is from when Anthony was accelerating away from the hurdles. His running form now is better than when he was three years old, of course, but he's still a kid. Each of the grades did their own sprints, and the difference from everyone else in some of the six-grade kids was absolutely shocking, because a few of them ran with the strength, efficiency, and natural grace of an adult sprinter (far faster and better, I'm sure, even in sixth grade, than I have ever been able to muster).

I spent all day running around with the camera, which perhaps isn't an ideal way to spend your first day of health after a protracted cold, so today every bone and muscle aches in the “you overdid it just a bit” way that seems to come more easily as the years go by. And I have more than a week's worth of email to check.... I can't recall a time in the last 25 years that I went for a week without checking email, so I'm sure it's not going to be fun. But watching Anthony yesterday was wonderful, and aches aside, it's great to be feeling healthy again.

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 340 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/4.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dark

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 340 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/4.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bright

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 340 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/4.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Original

I've been down with an upper-respiratory infection all weekend, only today realizing that it's not just a cold, so only today I'm finally on some antibiotics. So just a light post today...

While fishing around my Lightroom library for the photo at the end of yesterday's post, I came across another photo taken from the same location (the Imadegawa bridge over the Kamo River) of the bridge itself. It has some simple modern “stone lantern” type things at intervals that I think are pretty, but the ugly city backgrounds make it impossible for me to do much with them photographically.

But I had apparently played with the develop settings on this one in Lightroom, coming up with two opposing views derived from the same original.

This calls to mind posts from two and a half years ago (is Lightroom really that old already?) “Freaky Raw Processing: From Sunset to Moonrise with Adobe Lightroom”, and “Freaky “Artsy” Sharpening with Lightroom”, and from three years ago, “Photoshop’s Darken Blend Mode”

The better one is a photographer, the less one needs to do during post processing, but that doesn't mean that post processing still can't be an outlet for further artistic adventures.

(That being said, I don't claim that there's anything artistic on this post... just something I ran across yesterday and found interesting.)

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Not to become an all-Nils blog, but another post about our little scooter ride into Northern Kyoto that yielded the photogenic posts “A Visit to Rengeji Temple” and “The Hakuryuuen Gardens.” We continued into the mountains north of Kyoto, past Kibune and Kurama, way north past civilization into the deep forest, up the mountain.

I had been on the particular road many times, but never on a scooter (and was impressed with how it handled the steep road with 450lbs of passengers... not bad for a 125cc scooter!). Near the summit we thought to turn around and head back when I noticed a small gravel path leading deeper into the mountain. At its entrance were small signs about hiking trails, and a place called “pretty view”, so we decided to check it out.

It quickly turned into a rough, narrow, bumpy road that I would not want to take in a normal car (a 4×4 would have had no problem), and I wondered what on earth it might be for. Japanese mountains are full of essentially abandoned roads that were used at one time during dam construction or the like, so perhaps that's what this was (though on second thought, we were so high near the top of the mountain, I don't think a dam would do much good).

After some time, we came across the most eerie sight: a clearing with a well-preserved big American-style motor home surrounded by tall weeds, a small well-built shack that looked as if it was made from old railroad ties, and several house foundations that were bare save a chimney jutting up....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/8, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
What on Earth?

There were well-worn paths leading away from the gravel road even deeper into the woods, and as we ventured in to check it out, Nils was cracking lines like “this is where I like to dispose of the bodies”. It was sort of an odd, creepy place, but its weirdness value skyrocketed when a hundred yards in we came across what appeared to be a turret or the top of a castle tower..

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/8, ISO 4500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Mega Creepy

Nils' best guess is that it was a blind for hunting, perhaps wild boar. I dunno.

From there, down the mountain, we noticed trees with white-painted trunks, which has its own oddness...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/3.2, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
Trees with White Trunks

From a distance I thought it might be paint or a wrapping... something to preserve against bugs, along the lines of the tree snuggies that I've posted about, but closer inspection showed that they were surrounded with squiggly plastic things, held tight by wrapped wire...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 35 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/3.2, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos

The white plastic things littered the ground, and there were bundles of wire all over...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/5, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos

I had absolutely no idea what any of it was for, but Nils suddenly realized: it's a tree farm where they prepare ceder trunks to be tokobashira (床柱), the main support post in a traditional Japanese house's tokonoma alcove （床の間). The trees continue to grow after being wrapped, and the wood gets a certain kind of prized moulded look.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 48 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/5.6, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos
Prized

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 44 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Not Yet Prized

In either case the bark will be removed and the wood polished before it's used. I was searching around the web for a photo of a finished tokobashira and all I found was a picture of me (Nils' photos from the same trip).

Eventually, we returned to the scooter and continued along in search for the “pretty view” location, but the road became so rutty and bouldered that it was impassable on bike. So, we returned to the main road, but along the way paused to climb a short hill to get a nice (but hazy) view East out to Biwako....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/9, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos

The tower from Kyoto's “I Fall” Tower is about half way between here and the lake, and about at half the elevation, but I guess is too low to be seen from this view.

I thought that the ugly tower at this location looked familiar, and indeed, I think it's because you can see it from Kyoto on a clear day. I found the following photo from a crisp day in February, taken from 10 miles away in Kyoto City proper not all that far from my place, near the corner of Kawabata and Imadegawa. The bottom of the tower peaking out from under the clouds in the upper left of the frame...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 340 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/10, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos

This was from the same shoot that produced “More Thin-Depth-of-Field Fun” and the humorous ““Untitled 2009”.” It's also the same location that produced, on a much nicer spring day, “A Pleasant Day Along the Kamo River.”

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Praise for Teacher
Anthony's “Picture Diary” for Sep 24th

One bit of homework Anthony and his first-grade friends have every day is to write an entry in their 絵日記 (enikki — Picture Diary), where they fill half of a page with writing about something from the day, with the other half getting a related picture. I assume its main purpose is for practice in writing Japanese, but it also gives them a chance to stop and think about their day, and good practice for expressing themselves in writing.

Today was the first day back after a long five-day weekend and he couldn't think of something to write, so Fumie asked whether there was any message he might want to say to the teacher, and so he came up with the entry shown above...

Precious.

For his entry yesterday, he wrote about our visit to a Cirque du Soleil show in Osaka on Tuesday, Corteo. I scanned his entrythis evening, after the teacher had made her marks at school today...

Anthony's “Picture Diary” for Sep 23rd

It reads...

He had forgotten to punctuate his sentences, so the teacher filled in two periods (though I think four are actually needed). The red squiggles are areas marked with a flower (花丸 hanamaru, “flower circle”), meaning that they're particularly well done. It's equivalent to a gold star or happy-face sticker a kid might get in The States.

The teacher's comments at the end (at left) say “Amazing! One probably couldn't imitate it! They sure must have practiced quite a lot.”

Most of the show was acrobatics and other amazing feats of physical skill (strength, juggling, balance, etc.), but there were episodes of comedy and, like any Cirque du Soleil, episodes of manic LSD-inspired absurdity that no one could possibly understand.

Anthony's pictures refers to one of the scenes of comedy and fun, the “Helium Dance”, where a performer of very slight stature (a midget, a somewhat elderly lady with the most regal poise and grace) is suspended from a bunch of balloons such that she weighs just a touch more than nothing. And so, with a slight push, she can fly through the air in a slow, gentle arc, eventually coming back down at a leisurely pace. The fun part was when she was launched into the audience, who were then told to use both hands to gently pass her along the way, and like a beach ball at a stadium, she went all over. But unlike a beach ball, she's interacting with the audience and having a ball of a time.

I certainly would have liked to fly like that.