Besides a lot of rock at Osaka Castle Park, one is also prone to find a lot of people taking pictures. For reasons I can't explain, I often find myself taking pictures of people taking pictures, although I've only posted the results a few times (here, here, and here).

I'll add to that list today....

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 80mm — ¹/90 sec, f/5, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nao

Even though Nao is not looking at my camera, he still seems to have that “presence” I mentioned on the impromptu portraits post.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 95mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5.3, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
His is Bigger than Mine

I have the same Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 he seems to be using, but my Nikon D200 is dwarfed by what looks to be a Nikon D2 of some sort (which is about the same size as the Nikon D3 shown here).

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 200mm — ¹/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Helping Hands

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/1250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nao Again

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Mari and Kevin

The shot above really should be a throwaway, but something just draws me to it.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 70mm — ¹/25 sec, f/5, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
That Stance Looks Painful
If not anatomically implausible

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 29mm — ¹/80 sec, f/4, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Two-Year-Old Pro

I got a peek at the photo that Emi took of her parents, and was astounded at how good it was. Anthony could have done a bit better, but he's twice her age. I could have done better still, I think, but sadly, not 20× better, so I think Emi wins with the highest skill-to-age ratio.

The next picture is an optical illusion.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/40 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Medium-Format Optical Illusion

I stopped for dinner in Kyoto on the way home, and found myself sitting next to two professional photographers. The optical illusion is that while the camera looks a bit small next to that drink glass, without any other point of reference in the photo you don't realize that that's the biggest drink glass I've ever seen in my life. Even if you could lift it, you wouldn't need to because you could just bob your head down into the thing to drink like a horse.

The camera's size matched the glass. It was huge. I tried holding it, and felt dwarfed and feeble. You might recall my reaction when I first held a Nikon D200 – filled with words like “beefy” and “heavy” – but this camera puts mine to shame. It looks to be a Pentax 67 medium-format (6x7) SLR. The body alone (that is, without the lens) is 20% wider, 25% taller, and 30% thicker than my D200, and at 3.7 pounds, a stunning 100% heavier.

It's a film camera that accepts film with 10 frames on a roll. In what must be the most colossal waste of film, its owner snapped a picture of me.

He had six frames remaining before he had to change film.

By the way, for the record, it is unknown what the drink in the huge glass was. I asked the guy, to which he replied “I don't know. I asked for a Heineken, and they gave me this. I think they must have misunderstood my order.”

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 200mm — ¹/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos

As you might have noticed in my posts about the paper airplanes and impromptu portraits in Osaka Castle Park, it's a place with a lot of carved granite. A lot.

As the name “Osaka Castle Park” might imply to the astute reader, it's a park in Osaka Japan that contains a castle. Despite having lived not very far away on and off for the better part of 20 years, my visit last weekend was my first. I'd never been very interested in seeing it because it's not very old – it was built about 20 years ago, as the current Wikipedia entry on Osaka Castle notes:

1997: Restoration was completed. The castle is a concrete reproduction (including elevators) of the original; the inside does not resemble a Japanese castle at all. “

However, the site itself – the huge park with all the moats and ramparts of huge cut stone – turns out to be a wonderful place to visit on a pleasant afternoon. And while the castle is modern, much of the reset (the aforementioned moats and ramparts) date back almost 400 years. Quoting again from the Wikipedia entry:

1620: Tokugawa Hidetada began to reconstruct and rearm Osaka Castle. He built a new elevated main tower, five stories on the outside and eight stories on the inside, and assigned the task of constructing new walls to individual samurai clans. The walls built in the 1620s still stand today, and are made out of interlocked granite boulders with no mortar whatsoever; they are held together solely by each other. Many of the stones were brought from rock quarries in the Seto Inland Sea, and bear inscribed crests of the various families who laid them into the walls. “

Their authenticity is an added bonus, because even when I thought that it was all a modern reconstruction, it was an impressive and beautiful site/sight. My only complaint might be that at the moment, the water in the moats seems a bit low and stagnant (and hence ugly), so that could have been better.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 24mm — ¹/350 sec, f/3.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Viewing the Formidable Inner Moat

As you might expect of a castle, the place was designed for defense, and to both intimidate and impress visitors. The site is huge, with two concentric moats, each with its own multi-story rampart of cut stone, leading up to a castle that itself sits atop a further three-story wall of smoothly-cut rock.

Some areas of the moat are currently dry, but to give you an idea of the impressive layout, in the picture below I colored in the moat areas to make them easily visible. The castle itself is marked with red....

Google Maps

Thus, if you had it in your mind to lay siege to the castle and were actually able to get across the moat and up the sheer rock face of the rampart (all without getting speared or arrowed), you then faced another moat above which this view would present itself.....

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 56mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
View From Between the Moats

That view might leave those that are more warrior than worrier with a sense of “almost there!” but they would be fatally mistaken, because after crossing the moat and after scaling the wall, they would indeed be done with the watter barriers, but would still have narrow well-defended paths and four stories worth of wall in their way just to get to the base of the three-story rampart upon which the castle actually sits.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 82mm — ¹/160 sec, f/5, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nao Holds up the Wall

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 60mm — ¹/125 sec, f/4.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Weathered

One small area of the park was littered with stones both big and small, making it a wonderful place for the kids to play (and for family portraits).

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Naomi, Kana, and Emi Play

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/640 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Emi Climbs while Nao Lounges

At times you walk right beside the huge walls, the bases of which are composed of huge stone. The aforementioned “intimidated and impressed” feeling is still in effect.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dwarfed by the Base of the Wall

Once you finally wind your way to the top plateau, you find the fake castle on its three-story rampart....

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 18mm — ¹/90 sec, f/3.5, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Base of the Castle Proper

(You can see an external glass-sided elevator to the right of center)

Being fake, I still wasn't interested in the castle itself, but the miles of rock wall were fascinating. Turning around, the view was of a section of the inner moat that was currently without water...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 55mm — ¹/20 sec, f/4.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Inner Moat in Drydock

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 36mm — ¹/80 sec, f/4.2, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Old and New

The lip of the rampart above the inner moat had both old and new stone. I'm not sure what the notches in the rock are for. They're too small to provide protection to archers, and they're no good for pouring hot oil, unless you wanted to pour it all over your own feet. At first blush, they actually look like something to hold a rope that would allow someone to scale the wall, but that makes no sense, so I don't know.

In the fading light after sunset, I made this fuzzy handheld shot of a section of the inner moat that still had a bit of water.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/25 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Business Side of the Inner Moat

As I posted the other day, I met some friends in Osaka Castle Park with my camera in tow. The combined kids (ages 2, 6, 8, and 10) had no shortage of fun, including a brief spell with paper airplanes that started out innocently enough, but eventually turned dangerous.

Here, they start out making the planes....

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/3200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Kana-chan as Lead Builder

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/1000 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Daddy Helps Out

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Ready for Launch

Kana-chan (10 years old, in blue) had also made an elaborate origami target. It's lying on the ground well in front of my camera position, and is what they're aiming at....

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/320 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — Launch —

However, Daddy #2 gets the bright idea to place the target on his head....

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sacrifice on the Alter of Children's Play

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Now With Added Purpose

I don't know where he got such a stupid idea (perhaps having been prompted to do so by the photographer?) but it unleashed in the children a touch of naughty, and they started going after human targets.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
“You wouldn't dare....”
(this one's horribly out of focus, sorry)

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
“... because I have one too!”

It turns out that she did dare.

They eventually moved from small human targets to large. Here, Yoko narrowly misses being impaled with a green plane...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Near Miss

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Final Photo

I was lucky to get that picture above, because soon after, the camera suffered some mysterious frontal-impact damage. I did notice some shreds of green paper among the twisted metal and shards of glass, which is perhaps some kind of clue? 🙂

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/350 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
What am I?

This was a situation where the shallow depth of field was way, way too shallow

This one should be easy, but if not, check the “map & image data” link for a hint.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — ¹/80 sec, f/4, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Chestnut

We took a nice drive this afternoon on the Hiei Parkway in the mountains to the north-east of Kyoto, to see the foliage. We hoped that up in the mountains it would have progressed a bit more than it has so far in the city, but it turns out to still be pretty much at the beginning.

At one point we paused at a moss-covered clearing that was somewhat littered with chestnuts. At least I thought it was moss at the time, but looking at the picture makes me think that they were super tiny little ferns. Maybe that's what moss is?

There was also a set of steps and a path, leading to Lord knows where.....

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 30mm — ¹/60 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Destination Unknown

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