Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/2500 sec, f/4, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tiers of Rice Paddies Fading Into the Distance
Continuing from yesterday's post about playing in rice paddies, we crossed the streets to see the ones we came there for. They're tiers cut into a hillside on either side of a small stream coming from the mountains. Because they're above us and extend so far away (well over a dozen tiers extending almost a mile up the hill), only the first few closest really look like anything. The rest are too small.
If it hadn't been so excruciatingly hot, I might have had the sense to drive up the hill on the little access road that parallels the stream, to get a shot from above. Hmmmm, I should perhaps return tomorrow. (UPDATE, it wasn't the next day, but I did return.)
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/2500 sec, f/3.5, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nils Takes a Shot; Greg and Anthony Enjoy the View
Honest Day's Work
( A lone worker is visible center right.)
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/320 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Kids are Still Running
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/800 sec, f/4, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Pooped
That last shot accentuates the close, which gives the same scene a really different look, I think. I like it, but then, I'm easily self-impressed.
I went for a drive into the mountains the other day, with Anthony, Nils Ferry, and Nils' son Greg. It was the first time I'd seen Nils since he was my tour guide around Kyoto's Miyagawa-cho area earlier in the summer, about the same time that Anthony last saw three-year-old Greg (when they checked out some big mushrooms together).
Our goal was a photo hunt of some terraced rice paddies that I'd seen the previous day, but the kids having fallen asleep during the drive, we first had to wake them up...
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/20 sec handheld, f/7.1, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Snoozin'
(Nils has an almost identical photo on his blog.)
Just out of the air-conditioned car, the kids were cool and fresh...
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — 1/160 sec, f/8, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
“Before”
It was unmercifully hot, with the sound of sizzling flesh any time bare skin was exposed to the unrelenting sunshine. I just wanted to wilt, but the kids, of course, ran and played with abandon until the heat started to wear on them as well....
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/640 sec, f/4, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
30 Minutes Later
It was a hilly area, so the rice paddies made terraces with well-groomed berms in between. Our real goal were the ones across the street from where we parked, but the kids first went running off to some closer ones....
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/90 sec, f/8, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nils, Anthony, and Greg
(all out of focus, sorry)
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — 1/180 sec, f/8, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Greg Doing His “Scary Monster Face”
at his dad's request
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 190mm — 1/125 sec, f/8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Any Occasion is an Occasion to Run
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/320 sec, f/8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Short Break
The shutter speed of the picture above is 1/320th of a second, which is probably how long they both sat there like that. I got one picture, but they got up and ran some before I could move for a better shot. Instructions from both daddies to go back and sit down went unheeded.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 125mm — 1/350 sec, f/8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Approach With Caution!
(Anthony found a small mushroom)
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/4000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Vistas
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — 1/2500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bird
(a crane or heron or something)
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/640 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
If I were a kid, I'm sure I'd think that
It'd be fun to roll down that bank
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 82mm — 1/90 sec, f/14, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Lap #72
Once we were done here, we rested in the shade a bit, then headed over to see the paddies we originally came for, but I'll leave those for a later post...
I posted yesterday about an amazing evening rainbow I saw at dusk but neglected to get a picture of. It turns out that there was a similar rainbow 10 minutes earlier, 10km away, that a friend was able to get a picture of while driving.
See his rainbow pictures here.
Having taken the main rainbow photo while driving, it's not the best example of photography ever made, but at least he got a shot, which is infinitely more than I was able to do.
For a while now, I've been meaning to recommend Zak Braverman's blog as one with good photography and well-written posts. He's an American who went to college in Kyoto and has lived in Japan on and off for 17 years, currently residing over the hill from me in Otsu with his wife, 3-yr-old son, and 3-month-old daughter.
He's not a geek like I am (he's a non-geeky Japanese-to-English translator), but he does like his cameras and we enjoy being geeky about camera things. He has a Fuji S5 Pro (essentially like my Nikon D200 with a different sensor), and tends to like street photography.
So, Zak's is among the blogs I read. I use Bloglines so that I don't have to manually check each one each day, but can simply look to see what's new. Highly recommended.
Anthony, Mommy, and Daddy
Half an hour after the sun went behind the mountains, and 10 minutes after the official sunset when it was already fairly dark, I saw the most amazing, deeply rich maroon/crimson/pink rainbow you could imagine.
At first I caught only the glimpse of one edge of it... it was brilliant, all the more so because of the aforementioned darkness, and perhaps also because the sunlight creating it must have been the deepest of the reds of sunset (seeing how the sun had set 10 minutes prior, it was made with the last rays still hitting misting rain from the upper clouds). It was during that golden moment you might see a few times a year when every wisp of cloud is brilliantly pink to begin with, set against a subdued darkening sky.
Anyway, suffice to say that I'd never seen anything like it, and it inspired awe. And that was just one edge of it. To see more, we had to go out onto the balcony.
I rushed Anthony out onto the balcony, then rushed myself into my room to grab my camera. And my monopod, which took an agonizing 30 seconds to find. Oh, drat, the camera doesn't have a memory card, so I quickly put one in. Geez, you know, it's really too dark for the monopod, I may as well just use my new tripod, but the @*#&!($&)%! protective cover won't come off in the split second I want it to, and I have to wrestle with it for five seconds. Finally, I rush out onto the balcony to see the final glimmers of the rainbow and rich clouds fading away to a bleak nothingness. Sigh.
(UPDATE: I missed it, but a friend did not.)
I was depressed both about missing it, and about not getting a picture of it. Anthony sensed this, and said that he'd draw a picture of it for me that would make me happy and that I could “keep with me until I die,” which is what's featured above. He took some poetic license in that he's missing the reds and pinks that were predominate, it was dark but there weren't yet stars, and Mommy wasn't there. (Mommy was at an appointment at the time, and the taxi driver on the way home told her about it, and about how everyone was taking pictures of it. Everyone but me, that is.)
Anyway, Anthony's drawing did make me happier.
Mommy had recently taught him how to make stars with two triangles. I think the black thing in the upper-right is a failed attempt, with two triangles that aren't quite arranged as effectively as he'd hoped. By the one in the upper-left, he seems to have gotten the hang of it.
The image above is a tiny version (click to enlarge somewhat) of a “painting” I made from a photo I took at Ryouanji (龍安寺 — the Ryouan Temple in Kyoto Japan) a couple of years ago. One of the toys I picked up on my trip to The States is a Wacom Intuos 3 pen tablet, which came with a copy of Corel's Painter Essentials 3 that I used to paint-ize the photo.
Corel's product is a mixed bag. It's just fantastic when it works, but it had a tendency to crash on me every five or 10 minutes, just disappearing without a trace (losing all my work in the process). I got into the habit of saving my work often.
I contacted Corel support, who basically told me to get lost
because, although I paid for their product, I didn't buy it directly from
them. That kind of “support” makes my blood boil. A web search for a fix
found a lot of people angry with Corel for a total lack of support, but no
solution to my problem. 
Anyway, back to the painting, perhaps this should be filed under “easily self-impressed,” but I really like the results I was able to achieve between crashes. Here are some full-resolution crops....
Roof Near the Upper-Right Corner
Stump Near the Lower-Right Corner
End of the Path in the Center
I then loaded it into Photoshop and built up the frame, signed and dated it, and added a brass nameplate....
Content creation like the nameplate is not my strong suit in Photoshop. Well, not much is, but I've been able to do a few nice things, such as this photo touch-up for a friend's new-year's card, and some other things that I've written about before and are linked to in the “Followups and Related Posts” box below.
In creating the nameplate, I used five separate layers: the plate itself, the text, one for each brad holding the plate to the frame, and a final layer with which I tried to add a bit of sheen to the metal. It's all wholly pedestrian to a Photoshop expert, but was a fun challenge for me to try to figure out. It still looks sufficiently fake that I'll probably go back to futz with it further, but I'm not sure what it really needs.
What I really need to do is to find a place here in Kyoto where I can have the painting part (sans the frame) printed big-sized on high-quality rag paper (I think “rag” is the kind of paper that would make this look good). Then I need to find a real frame for it, and put it on the wall. I actually do have a small version of the original photo on the wall of my room, as can be seen slightly in the background of a picture on this post.