{"id":756,"date":"2008-03-06T12:28:09","date_gmt":"2008-03-06T03:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-03-06\/756"},"modified":"2008-03-06T12:28:09","modified_gmt":"2008-03-06T03:28:09","slug":"kyoto-plum-blossom-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-03-06\/756","title":{"rendered":"Kyoto Plum-Blossom Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D50 + Nikkor 28-80mm f\/3.3-5.6 @ 80 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f\/5.6, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nPlum Blossoms at the Zuishin'in Temple<\/span>\nMarch, 2006 — Photos by Katsunori Shimada\n<\/div>\n\n

In the last week or two I've started to notice some early blossoms\naround town. As far as<\/span> I know,<\/span> plum are the earliest, so that's what I\nassume<\/span> they are. They tend to have much deeper, richer colors than cherry\nblossoms, and so can be more striking in one sense, but also more concrete\nand mortal in another. (Cherry blossoms, on the other hand, when\nexperienced first hand, definitely lean toward “intangible” and\n“ethereal”.)<\/p>\n\n

Last year I posted my first blossom pictures<\/a> on\nValentine's day. It seems<\/span> that this year I've had a cold<\/span> pretty much\nstraight since then, so no fresh blossom pictures yet. Since no\none liked<\/a> the ultra-puffy late-blooming cherry blossoms in last week's\nKyoto Cherry-Blossom\nPreview<\/a>, I'll try some plum blossoms from my archive.<\/p>\n\n

The photos on today's post were taken by my friend Katsunori Shimada\ntwo years ago, on a visit<\/span> we made together to the Zuishin-in Temple<\/a>)\nnear where he lives in the Yamashina ward of Kyoto. It seems<\/span> that I\nneglected<\/span> to geoencode his photos, but they're taken at the same locations\nas my pictures from the\nsame trip<\/a> that I posted<\/span> at the time, which do have “map” links.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D50 + Nikkor 28-80mm f\/3.3-5.6 @ 50 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f\/5.6, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nTemple Wall<\/span>\nPhoto by Katsunori Shimada<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D50 + Nikkor 28-80mm f\/3.3-5.6 @ 80 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>500 sec, f\/5.6, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nPlum-Blossom Detail<\/span>\nPhoto by Katsunori Shimada<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

It was an exceptionally<\/i> bright day, so the shadow contrast was\nharsh. You can often<\/span> make bright sunshine work to your\nadvantage<\/a> with fall foliage, but it's a bigger<\/span> challenge for the more\ndelicate nature of blossoms. Since posting my own\nshots<\/a> two years ago, I've learned a bit<\/span> how to compensate for strong\ncontrast after the fact (in Lightroom, I lower<\/span> the contrast, then raise the\nvibrancy to restore the color lost in the first step), so pictures on\ntoday's post may come out a bit<\/span> more realistic.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D50 + Nikkor 28-80mm f\/3.3-5.6 @ 28 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>250 sec, f\/8, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nMe, Showing my Good Side<\/span>\nPhoto by Katsunori Shimada<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

The Zuishin'in temple's gardens are nicely laid out with layers of\ncolor. If I can<\/span> get over this cold, I'd like to<\/span> head back there with\nShimada-san to see whether I couldn't<\/span> do better than I did<\/span> last time.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D50 + Nikkor 28-80mm f\/3.3-5.6 @ 60 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f\/6.3, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nVarious Pinks<\/span>\nPhoto by Katsunori Shimada<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D50 + Nikkor 28-80mm f\/3.3-5.6 @ 28 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f\/9, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nCamera-Phone Lady<\/span>\nPhoto by Katsunori Shimada<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Hah, he also took a picture of the lady trying to get a\nblossom<\/span> picture<\/a> with her camera phone. It's quite<\/span> a common<\/span> sight, but\nwith the quality of phone cameras today, it's perhaps not as silly as it\nwas two years ago.<\/p>\n\n

Shimada-san is an excellent photographer with a natural,<\/span> innate sense of\ncomposition, so it's unfortunate for us that he doesn't do it more. A collection<\/span> of a few<\/span>\nfall-foliage snapshots he took<\/a> is one of the most popular posts on my\nblog, ever (see the “Hall of Fame” in the sidebar on my blog home page<\/a>). Also\non my blog are a dozen<\/span> of\nhis photos<\/a> that I used<\/span> for a calendar.<\/span><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the last week or two I've started to notice some early blossoms around town. As far as I know, plum are the earliest, so that's what I assume they are. They tend to have much deeper, richer colors than cherry blossoms, and so can be more striking in one sense, but also more concrete and mortal in another. (Cherry blossoms, on the other hand, when experienced first hand, definitely lean toward \"intangible\" and \"ethereal\".)<\/p>

Last year I posted my first blossom pictures on Valentine's day. It seems that this year I've had a cold pretty much straight since then, [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}