Most days it doesn’t matter, except for the ritual greetings to the Shinto gods they perform, but the daycare Genbo and Zoe attend is attached to a major regional shrine, with a history going back to 667 AD to when the area was, briefly, the capital of Japan. The oldest class, however, gets to take part in a yearly ceremony called Miae Matsuri, which is, as close to I can figure, an annual thanksgiving to the gods for the bounty of the harvest, etc. etc.

This festival just happened to fall on the morning of the day we flew back to the States. So, we did the whole ceremony thing, changed really quickly, then hopped on a plane to San Francisco. Which, by the way, is where I’m writing this. So, it doesn’t have the usual custom formatting that I have set up on my home machine.

Genbo was given a place of honor holding a live rooster in a basket, which may or may not have been sacrificed as part of the ceremony we didn’t see. There was one other kid performing the same duty, but he apparently got scared of the thing during practice and had to have someone else take over.

Photo-Op with Mom

Hanging out with friends

Can we go to America now?

Genbo and first friend

The Procession Begins

Up the Stairs

Through the Gate-Portal-Thingy

And Everyone Follows

…To be continued.

OK, there are still a few blossoms on the cherry trees, so this post is not technically late. I returned to the exact place pictured in the first shot of this post with a mission to take some non-boring sakura pics. Since I wanted to use my new neutral density (ND) filters, however, I knew I wanted to do something with running water. These are basically just darkened glass you put in front of the lens to allow you to keep the shutter open for longer, thus capturing motion, without blowing everything out. The trick, as I quickly learned, is to find something moving in close juxtaposition with something not.

After many, many false starts, I finally settled on this one rock in the stream with some blossoms stuck to it. I had to take off my shoes and bring my tripod down into the stream to get the right perspective, but it was worth it. Not only was I able to arouse some levity among the passers-by, but I also got some very nice shots. (At first the water was extremely cold, but I just lost all sensation in my feet after a few minutes, which is good, because the rocks were sharp, too.)

These first two shots are some of my favorite that I’ve ever taken. I love how the ND filters let me keep the shutter open long enough to make the water all silky, while still capturing the rock-stranded blossoms in perfect clarity. The whisps of light you see are reflections on the water’s surface.

This first one, especially, deserves to be clicked on to see at full size.

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Here I was fortunate enough to be in a position to capture a bunch of blossoms blown into the stream by a particularly fierce gust of wind.

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…Or not. I cannot tell a lie.

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Not usually a big bird photographer, but I like these from today. (And, my previous bird shot garnered a rare compliment from the wife!)

Jump!
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Crows on the underside of the Sanjo bridge
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The same duck in repose a few minutes earlier. Taken with a neutral density filter allowing long exposure in daylight to get silky water effect. The ducks were completely still, which was sporting of them.

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It’s cherry blossom season, so here is the obligatory sakura photo. Actually, I have a lot more coming, but this one, sort of influenced by my friend Stephane, stands on its own.

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Need I say more?

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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.

Genbo as an astronaut, his friend Gabe as a pirate
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Even astronauts gotta run for the bathroom
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(OK, maybe that’s not why he’s running, but who cares?)

Some down time
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The obligatory pumpkin shot. I love the lighting and background here.
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Genbo looking outrageously handsome. ‘Course, I’m partial.
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Haven’t done many of these lately…

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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.

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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.

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Here are a few pictures from our daycare’s undokai, or field day, described here with video.

Genbo with his classmates (he’s the “mellon” class, with the green hats)
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Zoe gets ready for her task, navigating an obstacle course for 2-year olds.

Bucking up for the task ahead
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She required a fair amount of coaxing to get down from there
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Crawling under a net to get to mommy
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Finally!
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Cool moon above the trees
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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.

“Intent”
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Taken from the same chair

“Larry, Curly, and Moe”
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This guy was obviously not averse to having his picture taken

“Japanese dandy”
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This woman was praying at a local shrine on Teramachi.

“Through the smoke”
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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.

“Study in opposites”
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