Zach awry in Japan

16 September 2008 Bamboo Tomato Latice

…from my father-in-law’s garden

7 September 2008 Houzuki!

This here is called a hozuki in Japanese (Physalis angulata in English). This particular specimen was given me by a photographer I know. They’re mainly used for decoration, although with the leaves intact (example here) instead of disintegrated as in this one. It was basically the perfect excuse to break out the big heavy glass, which I’ve been itchin’ to do for a while.

The setup on my kitchen table

Leaf skeleton

Here you can see the fruit inside (highly recommend you click to enlarge this one–the ZF100 captures the textures of the disintegrating leaf so beautiflly)

If I were sophisticated I’d combine these last two images into a rollover (don’t worry if you don’t know what that means), but I’m not, so I’ll have to wait until my friend with uber geek powers gets back from the States.

Houzuki top

Houzuki bottom

27 July 2008 Fine wine and pottery

So today we went to visit the Kamadas, old neighbors of ours whom I describe here. We usually go back and enjoy their company and incredible cooking every month or so, although tonight we went back for a special occasion. Their eldest son, Keisuke, turned 20, which is the age of majority in Japan, and to celebrate they opened a magnum of wine purchased about 10 years ago that was made in the same year as Keisuke was born.They invited us to come and enjoy it with them.

The wine itself, pictured below, was amazing. I have always enjoyed wine, but have never tasted the really nice stuff. Now I know what I’ve been missing. This 20-year Burgundy was easily better than anything else I’ve had. The only way I can describe it is that it was deep and complex without being heavy. It just went down incredibly smoothly, and if you wanted to pay attention to it you could, but it wasn’t overpowering. Now I can’t wait until their middle child turns 20 in a few years.

Some classy wine

Kamada-san with a cavorting Genbo and Zoe

Genbo in the canonical “elbow-grabbing” pose

I’ve been meaning to take some more pictures of Kamada-san’s work, and this time I remembered to bring my camera and ZF100/2 macro lens. I still can’t get over the fact that, of all the potters in this pottery-loving country, the single one (literally) whose work I love best just happened to live next to me, and be a really nice guy who likes to invite me over, play with my children, and get me drunk with great wine and food. His work is very hard to capture, though, because so much of it is glossy and reflects light. The different metallic crystals are so beautiful, though, and have a fractal beauty that draws you in. By this I mean that you can appreciate the beauty of the glass at any number of scales, and there is complexity and beauty at each one, from viewed afar to the tiniest detail.

Works by Kamada Koji (鎌田幸二)

A wealth of photographic opportunity

I love these delicate lavenders and pinks

VERY close up

Two sake thimbles side by side

A detail (100% crop)

Cold sake out of these cups tastes SO good…

Another detail

One more…

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 Rain in urban rice field

14 May 2008 An all-natural post

Compared to the last one, this is an all-natural post. The photo perfectly illustrates what I love about the ZF 25/2.8: Very close focusing on a small flower, great sharpness, and nice bokeh around the central (sharp and highly detailed) image.

(Click to enlarge and see the beautiful full-size image or settle for mediocrity your entire life.)

14 May 2008 Fallen leaves

These were taken in Maki’s dad’s garden, although they could have been taken anywhere. (Yes many pixels were harmed and forced into unnatural configurations in the creation of this post.)

11 May 2008 My new baby

I’m referring to my new lens, of course, which I now have back in my possession, along with all the photos I took last weekend, because Maki’s dad was nice enough to take the nearly three-hour train ride (one hour on the express, but that’s for non-train-loving wussies, according to him) here to give it to me. Thanks Maki’s dad!

One of the things that appealed to me about the Zeiss 25/2.8, aside from extreme sharpness and freedom from modern evils such as autofocus and zooming, is the very low minimum focus distance. All lenses can only focus on things a certain distance away from them; just as you see old people move a newspaper away from themselves to read it. Well, the Zeiss can focus up to only 3 inches or so away from the front of the lens. This makes it almost a macro lens. But, at the same time it’s pretty wide at 25 mm. So, you gain the ability to take “environmental macros,” or close-up shots that also are wide enough to include more context than most macro shots show.

Here are just a few shots taken from a day at the park in Takefu, Maki’s hometown.

People were wondering why I was lying one the ground to get this shot.

Do you see a resemblance?

One at f/8 for a wide depth of field and wonderful sharpness…

And one at f/2.8 for a very narrow depth of field…

11 May 2008 Obutsudan

Obutsudan means a home Buddhist shrine. This is the one at Maki’s parents’ house, taken when we went up there last weekend. Maki’s mom is very devote, and offers prayers as well as food offerings every day. Most Japanese houses have one, although not usually as extravagant as this one.