We moved to Japan in early April 2004, staying at Fumie's folks' place in Hirakata-city, an hour south of Kyoto. Fumie had arranged an apartment prior to arriving, so once we were over jet lag sufficiently to move, we started the process of building a new life.

This was prior to my having started a blog, but for the first couple of weeks I kept an “on-line diary”, half for my family in The States to read, and half for my own memory. It apparently didn't work well for the latter goal, because I forgot about it until I ran across it today.

18-Month-Old Anthony
Unhappy With His New Boots
A week after we moved to Kyoto

For posterity, I've gone and injected these diary-like daily accounts into my blog with the April 2004 dates appropriate to the days they cover. It's pretty boring reading, but those with insomnia may wish to peruse them.

Getting Settled In Japan:

• April 12, 2004: Buying a Fridge, etc.
• April 13, 2004: Cell Phones and Air Conditioners
• April 14, 2004: Washer/Dryer and Microwave Oven
• April 15, 2004: Moving Day
• April 16, 2004: Alien Registration, Bicycles, etc.
• April 17, 2004: Random Errands
• April 18, 2004: Lazy Day
• April 19, 2004: Air-Conditioner Install
• April 20, 2004: Nanzenji
• April 23, 2004: Bike Ride and Furniture Shopping
• April 24, 2004: More Furniture Shopping
• April 25, 2004: Temples and Pink-Eye
• April 26, 2004: A Day Off with Daycare

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/1250 sec, f/4, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hot Stuff

Portrait-Mode Vertical Desktop-Background Versions
1050×1680  ·  1200×1920  ·  1600×2560     

You may recall (from my shrine-closing ceremony post last fall) photos of a Shinto rite of hope and good fortune of some sort, involving the burning of small sticks that had people's names and ages on them. As the sticks burned, the wishes and hopes of the person rose with the smoke (to the gods, I guess).

As I hinted with the Hot Stuff post the other day, this rite was done as part of the Setsubun events at the Heian Shrine.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 130mm — ¹/500 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bundle of Sticks
50 sticks per

At the shrine-closing ceremony, perhaps 60 sticks were burnt. At the Heian Shrine this past Sunday, about 40,000 were burnt.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 82mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Pallet of Bundles
( 1 of 2 )

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/500 sec, f/4, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Arriving from the Shrine
The 3rd and 4th priest carry boxes holing flames that will be used

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/320 sec, f/4, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Pre-Burn Blessing

There were two pyres, constructed mostly of wet-looking evergreens, along with a bunch of the “hope sticks” (I don't know what they're really called) arranged in a lattice for quick combustion, just as seen in the shrine-closing post. Large logs provided the shell/support for each pyre.

The pyres were lighted from the flames brought in the two boxes, and heavy smoke was soon billowing. The shot below was taken just a minute and a half after they were lit.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 82mm — ¹/800 sec, f/4, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Just the Beginning

The first large flames started shooting out less than a minute later, and soon after they were a raging inferno. The bulk of the hope sticks had yet to be added.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 120mm — ¹/2000 sec, f/4, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Intense

It was at about the time the pyres were really burning full tilt that I suddenly remembered the sermon from Mass earlier in the day. The priest had talked of a group of 50-some Kyoto Catholics that were burnt at the stake in October 1618 for committing the offense of being Christian. One of the families included a pregnant mother and six of her other children.

According to a Japanese account of the incident, the guy in charge of carrying out the executions made sure to pile the wood close and high. He knew some of the accused, he said, and wanted their deaths to be quick. How civilized.

Anyway, that was 400 years ago; today, the flames were fed only by wood.

The priests chanted nonstop, using microphones to broadcast the chant to the wider audience (although no one could understand what they were chanting; if it was in Japanese, it was sufficiently archaic to be unintelligible even to native speakers).

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/320 sec, f/2.8, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Chanting

I used a fast shutter for most of these pictures: the “Intense” shot above is at 1/2000^th second. The photo on the hot-stuff post is even faster at 1/2500^th second. The flames were really whipping about, so I tried a slower shutter to blur the flames a bit...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 160mm — ¹/60 sec, f/20, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Flames at ¹/60^th Second

After about seven minutes of mostly intense, angry flames, came time to burn the hope sticks that awaited on pallets. Each pallet had 168 bundles of 50 sticks each, yielding 16,800 sticks to be added. The younger priests started throwing them, but from a distance because it was really hot.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/640 sec, f/5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Adding Fuel to the Fire

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 95mm — ¹/160 sec, f/5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
On Standby

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/320 sec, f/3.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
In Line

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 150mm — ¹/500 sec, f/3.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
300+ Bundles, One at a Time

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 190mm — ¹/350 sec, f/6.3, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Smokin' Hot

Two young guys worked the fires with long mental poles, pulling embers out so that air could get in, and otherwise tending the fires. They were in the heat and the smoke the whole time, and they did not look like they were having fun.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/60 sec, f/4.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tending the Fire

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos

Thirty minutes after it started, it was over, and the fire brigade came in to clean up.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 34mm — ¹/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Aftermath

Continued here...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/250 sec, f/1.2, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Me  @  f/1.2
Photo by Zak Braverman

Zak kindly offered to loan me his Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 for a while, so I took a walk down to the Starbucks on Sanjo (eastern Kyoto, Japan) for the pickup.

f/1.2 is an extremely big aperture. I've written about the shallow depth of field you get at large apertures (small “f” numbers), such as on this Sigma 30mm f/1.4 post, but this f/1.2 aperture is a new experience for me. Focusing on anything relatively near with the aperture at f/1.2 results in a paper-thin field that's in focus, but even then, the focus is “soft” due to spherical aberration and perhaps other things that I don't understand. Zak put this to good use above, knowing that my face in sharp focus would be a Bad Thing.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/640 sec, f/1.2, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Zak  @  f/1.2
with a little extra artsy-fartsy contrast added in post

The two primary uses of a large aperture lens like this are for low-light photography (such as this), and to take advantage of the shallow depth of field. In the spirit of the latter artistic use, I thought I'd use it on my walk home with an eye toward a more artsy-fartsy shot.

However, upon exiting the cafe, I see a monk chowing down on a Big Mac. So much for artsy-fartsy.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hey, We've All Gotta' Eat

While eating, he was watching the Kamo River flow by. A shallow depth of field with the scene below didn't really do much except make everything mushy, so I ended up with a more normal f/5.6. Except for the guy's yellow jacket and the green of the weeds, the scene was almost completely devoid of color, so I just went ahead and turned it into an artsy-fartsy grayscale.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
You Flow Your Way, I'll Go Mine

You can walk or ride a bicycle along the banks of the Kamo river for miles, and it's mostly quite pleasant, but the short stretch between Sanjo and Ooike is really unpleasant on a bicycle...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/4000 sec, f/2, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bumpy

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/2500 sec, f/1.2, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Red Scoopy
( there was a Pink Scoopy parked nearby, as well )

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/5000 sec, f/1.2, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Boring

I really like the view of the mountains to the north of Kyoto you get from along the Kamo River, how they fade in layers many miles back into the mist. I see it almost every day, but I've never figured out how to take a good picture of it. As the photo above shows, though, I am quite adept at taking bad pictures of it. With the general mushiness of this lens at f/1.2, the car (which is ostensibly the focus point) takes on somewhat of a “soft-focus glow.”

Perhaps that kind of effect would be appealing for some kinds of fashion photography.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Ofuku-san, $400

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/1250 sec, f/1.2, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tommy Lee Jones is Tired, but Boss
(a brand of coffee)

The plants and mini vending machine were in front of someone's house. I tried a shot of the plants at f/1.2, but everything came out mushy...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/750 sec, f/1.2, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Too Soft

It could just be user error (that is, perhaps I didn't focus well, or didn't have a steady hand), but I'm fairly confident that I gave it a pretty good effort. I have a Katz Eye focusing screen, which allows for much easier/better manual focusing, and at f/1.2, the shutter was a zippy 1/750th second. It's still a sloppy mess.

Things are much sharper at f/5.6, but the result is unpleasingly busy.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/60 sec, f/5.6, ISO 160 — map & image data — nearby photos
Too Busy

I should have tried it at about f/2 or f/2.8.

A few houses down, there was a small sprig of those red berries I wrote about at the end of last year, and at f/2, I really like the result:

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/320 sec, f/2, ISO 160 — map & image data — nearby photos
Goldilocks Would Be Happy

I took the opportunity to revisit the red berries seen in that red-berries post (in its first picture, and its last two pictures). I can't say that have I much to show for it, though. The background is just too busy, even at f/1.2, to work in a wide-angle shot.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/5000 sec, f/1.2, ISO 160 — map & image data — nearby photos
Old Friends

However, the softness at f/1.2 make a very nice effect with this flower.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 — ¹/1250 sec, f/1.2, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Soft as a Baby's Bottom

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 24mm — ¹/80 sec, f/4, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Old Wall Of Coral

The roads of southern Japan's Amami Islands used to be lined with walls built from dead coral, but now only a few such remnants of the past remain. During our trip to Amami, we visited the most western village on Kakeroma-jima (the island outlined in purple on this map) and found some of the old walls. Some were quite tall, perhaps two meters.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 40mm — ¹/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Old Walls of Coral
and lots of sticks

The five sticks seen leaning against the walls in the image above are an example of what one often saw while driving around Kakeroma-jima: long sticks placed at frequent intervals along the road. It turns out that these are for pedestrians to fend off habu, poisonous snakes that are active during all but the coldest months. It was sufficiently cold while we where there that habu were not a worry, but they are a real concern during most of the year, as their bite is excruciating at best, fatal at worst.

When Fumie's grandmother was a little girl, the grandmother's mother lost the use of a leg to a habu bite. One can imagine it was traumatic enough for the one losing the leg, but during those hard times (in the 20s? 30s?), it caused great hardship for the entire family.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 31mm — ¹/640 sec, f/4, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos

I'm not sure how old the coral walls are, but I'd guess at least as old as the trees in the picture above. The picture below, taken further along the road, also gives some indication of the age.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — ¹/90 sec, f/5.6, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
Old Friends

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/1250 sec, f/5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos

Yesterday's events were more than just throwing beans.

Continued here...