5 March 2010 Kyoto Alleyway
This alleyway leading to a fine Kyoto dining establishment is quintessentially Kyoto. Or, rather, is the image the Kyoto often seeks to brand itself with, even though alleyways like this are actually fairly rare. Either way, it’s nice.
They were doing some construction on the bark-covered walls as I went to the camera store, and by the time I passed by on the way back with my new lens they were done.
I like the wood used on this post, although I have no idea how they got it to look that way.
4 March 2010 New Lens!
Today I took in my venerable Nikon 16-85 3.5-5.6 VR and traded it in (I repeat, Maki: TRADE-IN) for a Tamron 17-50 2.8 VC. In other words, I lost the “Nikon” label and some reach on the telephoto end for the ability to take better photos in poor light and create nice bokeh. A good trade-off, in my opinion. Here I’m taking advantage of the 2.8 aperture to create some nice bokeh I never could have with the Nikon. At 50 mm the Nikon was an unbearably slow f5, so all that stuff behind the statue, such as the tree and the woman with the red umbrella (had to wait while for a colorful umbrella to pass) would have been boringly in focus.
26 February 2010 Me playing in B&W
I have a friend here named Stephane, a French guy who who is a fellow Nikon owner and photo enthusiast. He takes great pictures, often processing them heavily so that, paradoxically, only the “essense” remains. I’m giving a very small-scale shakuhachi concert this Sunday at his house, and when I was there a few days ago to talk about it he snapped some shots of me preparing.
26 February 2010 Zoe in Repose
It’s so hard to keep a two year-old still. And, when she’s sleeping it’s usually in a dark room. Today, however, for some reason she didn’t take a nap at daycare, and hence fell asleep in my arms 30 seconds after coming home (about 10 seconds after insisting she wasn’t tired). After laying her down on the couch I brought out my tripod and a macro to take some still lifes.
14 February 2010 Purrrty (to me) Pictures
Last night the kids went to bed relatively early after a day of play and Maki had the night shift, so I stayed up and fooled around taking pictures, first from my balcony and then from my preferred studio (the kitchen table).
13 February 2010 Zoe Up Close
Everyone liked this shot of Zoe, so here is a blown-up version.
11 February 2010 Face of the Day
Just screwing around in Lightroom, actually figuring out how to use some of its best functionality, like the adjustment brush. Obviously very heavy-handed here, but I think the effect matches the guy’s expression.
11 February 2010 Keburikawa Onsen
As I explained in the previous post, Maki and I used to go to hotspring overnights in Kyushu a lot when we lived there. These places invariably only had 10-20 rooms, although with excellent service and food. I would be hesitant to take a 2 and a 5 year old to such a place, however. So, for this excursion, our first such overnight since Genbo was born, we chose a larger hotel. The onsen, Keburikawa in Kameoka, was in fact bigger and more institutional than both of us expected. At first I was a little disappointed by this, but our room was still excellent, and the size of the place meant that we didn’t have to keep Genbo and Zoe on such a tight leash (reducing stress). I was extremely glad that we decided at the last minute to spring for the room with its own outside bath; it really made the trip for us.
Here’s the balcony off our room, with its private bath made of shigaraki pottery. In Japanese it’s called a rotenburo, which Genbo still thinks is an English word because he learned it at a friend’s house in the States where there is an outside hot-tub. It’s hilarious to hear him pronounce this very Japanese word with an American accent.
Here’s our room shot from outside on the balcony. Very nice and spacious.
Wearing yukata, or simple kimono, is one of the pleasures of any onsen. Here is Zoe in hers, while Genbo waits in his skivies for his larger size to be delivered (he is, to put it mildly, taller than most Japanese 5-year olds). I particularly cherish this picture because Zoe, being a little bit more reserved than her brother, doesn’t often give the camera her full-wattage smile.
Much frolicking was had…
…and jumping too and fro…
Finally, Genbo’s yukata arrives.
Onsen exist just as much for the food as the baths, and the fact that you pay by the person instead of by the room attests to where much of your money goes. Although at smaller onsen you usually eat in your room, here there was a restaurant, where everybody was knocking back beer and sake in their yukatas. You had a choice of three different meals, and we chose the wild boar, which is apparently a local specialty.
Before dinner we had gone to the large public (gender-divided) baths, but after dinner we filled our own private one. It was raining outside, which just added to the atmosphere.
It was a long day for Zoe, who curled up in her favorite place before bed and didn’t even have the energy to bat my camera away or shield her face.
11 February 2010 Train to Onsen
Yesterday we took our first family trip with all four of us to anywhere other than our respective ancestral homes. We went to an onsen, or natural hotsprings, about 45 minutes outside of Kyoto in a little town called Kameoka (30 minute train ride, followed by a 15 minute shuttle bus).
Maki and I used to go to lots of hotsprings when we were childless and lived in Kyushu, the land of excellent onsen, but it’s not really the kind of things you enjoy with babies in tow. Still, it’s nice to get away for even just a night and enjoy some awesome baths and great food, and Genbo and Zoe do at least a passable of impression of human beings most of the time these days, so we’ve decided to explore the outskirts of Kyoto to see what we can find. These shots are all from the train to the onsen, as was the previous post.
I took this first shot before I realized my camera was still on full manual mode from my last macro shoot. Still, I like how Genbo is hamming it up for and Zoe is hiding from the camera. Only Adobe Lightroom saved an completely screwed-up exposure.
This next shot is from directly above Genbo as he gazes out the front of the train.
11 February 2010 Genbo’s World
Genbo at his customary station as we ride the train into the wilds.
7 February 2010 Yet More Pottery Macros
I’m going to have to start thinking of better post titles. Today we went to the Kamada’s for dinner, and I got another little sake cup. I decided to use it as an opportunity to take more methodical shots, this time lit only by the light of a single candle. This little cup was ostensibly given to me for my past birthday, but every time I go over to his house and ostentatiously praise a piece of non-for-sale-pottery, there’s a decent chance I’ll end up taking it home, so I have to be careful to keep my mouth shut for fear of wearing out my welcome.
This first shot is a pretty good representation of how the cup actually looks (or about one centimeter of it lit by a candle, anyway). However, since the candlelight was so red, I had to yank the whitebalance in Lightroom all the way over to the blue to begin to approach reality.
The image below is much closer to how it came out of the camera. Kind of makes me think of the fiery pillars of hell, reminding me to help little old ladies across the street. I like this alternate take, it being so much more expressive than the first, cool shot. One interesting thing about this shot is that there is much more information left in the image. I didn’t have to yank the image so far over to the blue end of the spectrum that lots of the photons in the red channel got lost, so we see much more of the cup than otherwise.
And, I couldn’t resist a shot or two of the candle as well.
3 February 2010 “Flaw”
Getting back into some macro work. This is another cup made by my friend Koji Kamada (鎌田幸二) that I use for sake or scotch. That little dimple in the middle, about a millimeter or two across, is the reason I have this beautiful piece of pottery. It’s a flaw that prevented it from being sold. As my kids would say, “Thank you, mister flaw.” (No, not referring to me.)
This one really deserve to be seen full size
