16 June 2008 Happy Monday
Taken at the same time this shot. Each one a testament to the awesomeness of an f2 macro lens, for the thin depth of field and delicious bokeh.
Archive for June, 2008
12 June 2008 Today in the park
As I described in my previous post, today Genbo, Zoe and I went with Anthony and his dad Jeffrey up into the hills near my house. At the very top was a small military graveyard. More on that later, but I just downed a big glass of beer, and I don’t feel like sleeping quite yet, so I thought I would just throw these up for now. First two photos taken by Jeffrey.
The engraved inscription reads, “To the memory of all fallen soldiers from the Sino-Japanese War, Russo-Japanese War, WWI, and WWII.” Genbo wanted to climb up and start throwing the stones, and wanted me to explain why he couldn’t. After a second’s thought I resorted to the all-powerful, “Because I said so!”
Zoe and I
Genbo crossing bridge, newly shorn (by me) head glinting nicely in the sun. Click here to see the exact same moment taken by Jeffrey, with a completely different result.
12 June 2008 Lightpainting Ayame
Today Jeffrey and Anthony came over and we explored the large park near my house farther than I ever have before. It extends all the way back into the mountain, and I’ve always wondered what’s back there. More about what we found (such as a grave for soldiers of the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars) later, but first some shots I just took tonight. On the way into the park is a very photogenic pond which I’ve always meant to shoot. Today as we passed it I noticed irises blooming, and I thought I should come back tomorrow morning when there was good light.
Later, it occurred to me to come back tonight and try some lightpainting. This is a technique in which the camera’s shutter is open for a long time in a dark environment, and you use a flashlight to brighten only certain parts of the scene. I had a lot of fun sitting in the wet dirt embankment of this pond in the dark, trying to take photos without kicking the entire tripod over into the drink.
Getting decent photos was harder than I expected. The right balance is hard to find: Just a second too long with the flashlight and you have an over-exposure. Spread the beam too wide and too much of the image ends up lit, looking like daylight. Too little light and you get darkness. Here are a few of my favorites.
(Ayame, by the way, is how you say iris in Japanese. It’s one word that I think is much more mellifluous in Japanese. Ah-yah-may…Such a nice expansive sound, as opposed to the high-pitched and squeely “eye-ris”…)
11 June 2008 Inch by inch, row by row
These are from a couple months ago when we went up to Maki’s parents’ house. Her dad used to be a high school teacher, but upon retirement has taken up farming. He’s pretty serious about it, and sells his produce at the local farmers’ market. Occasionally he sends us fresh veggies. His garlic is great, and I’m constantly pestering to send more (especially because I can’t bring myself to use anything less than a full bulb at a time).
Lately Genbo has been enjoying helping out grampa on the farm. Granpa has a couple small plots near their house which he uses, but these photos are from their backyard, which is also a pretty impressive vegetable patch/greenhouse.
“Why do they make this water stuff so heavy?”
Starting out conscientiously…
I’m always telling him to look at what he’s doing.
Observing his results. Not bad.
Inside the greenhouse
Now playing with the greenhouse in his jammies
These above-ground waterways are common in rural Japan. I think they used to function as sewers, but now they are mostly used for agriculture. Then again, no one really seems to know what goes in, and where it goes…
7 June 2008 Gong!
(This is the first time I’ve ever used the “rear curtain sync” flash mode, and I see it works as advertised.)
4 June 2008 Papa needs a new pair of shoes
Let it be recorded that today was the first day that Zoe put on a pair of shoes.
She still cannot walk, but she does push a walker around, and when she does so outside at daycare her feet get all dirty (a serious no-no in Japanese society), so her daycare teachers have been bugging us to buy some shoes. Genbo needed a new pair as well, so I took the risky move of buying a pair for both on my own, thinking that I could always come back and make an exchange if the sizes were wrong. As luck would have it, both pairs fit fine.
Zoe wasn’t quite sure what to make of her new pink Nikes. For some reason, she loves sneaking to the front door, where everybody takes off their shoes, and finding a nice smelly dirty shoe to chew on. Lately she’s settled on Genbo’s purple Crocs. Today we told her this would be the first and last time she could chew on her or Genbo’s shoes to her heart’s content. Apparently clean, new shoes don’t offer what she looks for in a chew-toy, though, so she settled on the cardboard box instead.
I was a little worried about whether Genbo would like his new shoes, but yellow is his favorite color, and when I told him he coud run really fast in these shoes, he was hooked. In fact, he ran up and down the hallway about 10 times demonstrating how just how fast his new shoes enabled him to run. I smiled inwardly, remembering doing the exact same thing when I was very young.
By the way, at the age of 3 years and 10 months Genbo is now wearing 19 cm shoes, which is huge. That’s size 13 in the US.
And, this pose is pure Zoe. Middle two fingers in mouth, with hand touching other ear. That means she’s ready for bed.
2 June 2008 I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky…
(That’s the opening to the first poem I ever memorized, bribed for $15 by my Aunt and Uncle. I still remember most of it, too. Coincidentally (or not) they also took me sailing a lot when I was a kid.)
Sorry for the lack of posting around here. Today is the first day in about two weeks I have had neither a rush job to finish or a sick baby to care for. Hallelujah.
I have a lot to post, but for now just these two pictures of Genbo yesterday out on lake Biwa, the Taho-sized lake we can see from our house. It was his first time sailing, and although he was looking forward to it, he was kind of underwhelmed by the actual experience. We had a very full day before even getting on the boat at about 3PM, so he was pretty tired to begin with. Then, he wasn’t thrilled about the whole life-preserver thing. Finally, once he figured out there would be no jumping dolphins or breaching whales to accompany us, he was borderline sullen. He ended up falling asleep against me right where he’s sitting in these photos. I had to use one hand to hold on to him and one onto the boat, thinking the whole time how mad his mom would be at me if he fell in.
