26 December 2009 Hair Very Blue, Lens Very Sharp, Girl Very Hot
Need I say more?
Archive for the ‘Lens: 70-200/2.8’ Category
26 December 2009 2009 Halloween Post No. 1
Well, it’s been another one of those post-less months. Now Christmas is passed, New Year’s is almost upon us, and I still have a bunch of Halloween-related posts I want to make. I’m going to get them all up before New Year’s or it’ll never happen. Here is the first one, a Genbo-centric post, from our Halloween back in the States.
(OK, maybe that’s not why he’s running, but who cares?)
30 November 2009 Face of the Day
Haven’t done many of these lately…
18 November 2009 Zoo Photos Which Don’t Suck
I’m just starting to go over all the photos I took back in the States, but these two grabbed my eye immediately. They were taken at the SF zoo. Both are, in their way, examples of fortuitous timing. In the first, I managed to catch the flamingos at just the moment when the center one was catching some great sunlight while all the others, somehow, were not.
And here, just the right angle of setting sun manages to make these few leaves and some stray spider silk into (what I think is) a beautiful image. That, and my trusty Nikon 70-200, a huge hunk of glass that photos like this make me glad I persist in carrying around.
13 October 2009 Field Day Fun, Pt. 2
Here are a few pictures from our daycare’s undokai, or field day, described here with video.
Zoe gets ready for her task, navigating an obstacle course for 2-year olds.
3 August 2009 Bumming Around Kyoto
Seems like a long time since I just grabbed my camera and went around Kyoto shooting. Did so the other day, and here are some of my favorite shots.
This girl spent about 20 minutes staring at her cell phone on San-jo Bridge while I snapped picture after picture of her from the outside tables at Starbucks. Never could tell if she noticed me.
Taken from the same chair
This guy was obviously not averse to having his picture taken
This woman was praying at a local shrine on Teramachi.
I’ve been noticing all the corrugated tin buildings in Japan lately. This one, in the middle of Kyoto, makes a great pair with the temple behind it. Now only if a white egret or even a tombi (black kite, kind of like a hawk) had graced the temple roof to offset the crow on the tin shed, the picture would have been perfect.
3 August 2009 Summer Fun
It’s been a very rainy summer here in Japan, but we still manage to go out to the neighborhood pool nearly every weekend. Genbo, especially, loves it. Playing in water in all its forms has to the pinnacle of fun for Genbo, even down to his favorite animals: dolphins and killer whales. When I bought an ocean nature DVD a couple years ago I was scared that perhaps the scene in which an orca kills some seals would traumatize him. Not only did it not phaze him then, but it’s now his favorite scene to watch. That, and the one where they kill a baby grey whale. Not sure what to think about that.
Zoe is more ambivalent. Sometimes she’ll play, but more often than not she’s content just to sit and watch. Here is a series of the former.
12 June 2009 First Model Shoot Ever
Last weekend I went on my first model shoot ever. I’ve mentioned here before that I belong to a photographer’s group here in Kyoto. Every odd month they meet to critique each other’s work, and every even month to go shoot something. I usually don’t go on the even months because I don’t like sacrificing Sundays with my family, but I just couldn’t resist this one time because it was an outdoor nude model shoot. They have a few different models who do this sort of thing for the group (and the sensei in particular, who is very well known), and it was the first time I was able to tag along.
The model was both very nice and very skilled. Skilled as in, being able to stand on a rock in a freezing cold river in various stages of undress for long periods of time and not complain nor lose concentration. She didn’t look cold, even though she had to be, especially when the sensei went and doused her with river water.
I have a lot more photos from this day I want to share (even that are suitable for a family blog), but the sensei asked me not to post more than this for now. A few people from the group are going to be using these photos for competitions, and he didn’t want me to “give away” the model and location before that. I was going to stress that this blog isn’t exactly frequented by the Japanese photography elite, but it wasn’t worth belaboring the point.
(Update: Upon looking at this post again, these photos also illustrate what a great firetrucking lens the 70-200 is. Couldn’t have gotten these shots with anything else.)
17 May 2009 Traditional Japanese Horsemanship
The other day we went back to our old stomping grounds in Fushimi for a great festival held at Fujinomori Shrine (藤森神社). The shrine is supposedly over 1800 years old, and was probably originally situated where it is because of a spring with delicious water; I used to bring a bunch of big water bottles there to fill up once a week or so. The shrine is, among other things, dedicated to horses as a symbol of victory and success (which is why you see guys making offerings there every Saturday morning on their way to the race track).
This particular festival involves exhibitions of traditional Japanese horsemanship: both tack and tricks that military horsemasters would perform to taunt the opposing army.
Japanese festivals of course always offer lots of stalls with scrumptious squid pancakes, octopus balls, and french fries for the kids. Not to mention lots of games where they can win plastic junk to take home and annoy their parents with.
I love the fact that these guys are so macho, they are not embarrassed or self-conscious about their traditional attire. Well, maybe the guy on the left is.
I truly admire the fact that one could wear that and still appear so totally humorless
full exif & map
full exif & map
I’ll save the actual trick riding for later, but leave you with a little teaser….
14 May 2009 Face of the Day
Old guy sketching on the bank of a river while two young guys walk by with cold beer and snacks.
4 November 2008 Fall Colors
We have been blessed by truly beautiful fall weather here in Minneapolis. Today Genbo and I were wearing short-sleeved shirts for a while.
Fall has always been my favorite season; well, ever since I went back east to school when I was 14. It’s not necessarily the colors of the leaves, although as you will see below I love those too. No, it’s a clarity to the sky, which is a paler blue, the light, which is crisper, and the air, which is cooler. Or maybe it’s the light that is cooler and the air that is crisper.
All photos taken with my favorite lens, the Zeiss 100/2. It works fine with my new camera, the D90, except for the fact that it isn’t chipped, so I can’t use the camera’s light meter. That’s not too hard to work around, but it also means that no EXIF information is recorded into the files, so I have no idea what aperture any of these were shot at. This is kind of a photographic bummer, but not such a big deal since I am philosophically opposed to opening up the thing wider than f/4 anyway.
(Click to enlarge at least two or Sarah Palin will become….No, never mind, I cannot even write it in jest.)
13 August 2008 Our Personal Fountain
Genbo has spent an awful lot of time in the water this summer. He’s shaping up to be quite a water-lover. First it was the vinyl pool on our balcony (which I’ll post pictures of later), then it escalated to the condo fountain (pictured below), and finally to the neighborhood community pool near us (again, pictures to come). He won’t even come out of the bath, he loves splashing and playing around in it so much.
Zoe, too, in just the past few weeks, has undergone a veritable phase change from a passive blob of baby-dom to an active toddler who feels quite at home playing with her brother and his friends (regardless of whether they might want her to).
Here are some shots of Genbo playing with Nao, his best friend in the building, while Zoe gamely participates.
Zoe has a thing for shoes, a predilection I hope doesn’t end up costing me money 
Nao’s mom and little brother Asaki
Zoe doesn’t mind being wet one bit
I like how her face isn’t in focus here, but the water droplets are
What a smile…
Genbo and Nao
Grrr…..
Little Asaki. He’s so square and solidly built we call him Oyabun, which means “Yakuza boss” 
They are building a new condo in the lot behind ours. The developers lied to everyone in our building, of course, saying that it would be a retail space of only a few storeys, but it’s a condo just as tall as ours (15 storeys). They just didn’t lie on paper, and the wheels of Japanese justice turn excruciatingly slowly, so it’s not worth it trying to do anything about it.
Someone is having a very different kind of day
Pictures of Genbo in the same fountain last year are here.
13 August 2008 Sunset clouds
Really the only thing I like about summer more than any other season is the clouds. Summer brings magnificent clouds just about anywhere. Since I was already taking photos from my balcony for the previous post, I had my camera handy to take these at sunset today.
I’ve written about that boat before here
A fine example of cumulonimbostrato…something
