I’ve been wanting to take some close-ups of eyes for the next meeting of my photography group, and foolishly thought that maybe I could get my kids to cooperate. This first photo here happened basically by chance, but none of the others were what I was aiming for. So much for getting my kids to hold still. Still I took the opportunity to grab some nice photos of everybody. Here I used a plugin called Silver Effects Pro for the B&W conversion.

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A couple days ago Genbo’s friend Anthony came over with his dad Jeffrey, and we went to the nearby park to play.

Daunting (but undaunted)
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Genbo and Zoe on the slides
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Zoe looking particularly young and innocent here
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Genbo and Anthony went off to get some shaved ice, and it was fun watching (and taking way too many photos of) them all negotiating the two servings between the three of them.

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On the way home…
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Spring has finally come, and the garden in our building is bursting thanks to the Gardening Club, whose efforts I am grateful for but have no desire to partake in. (Gardening, ugh. Don’t they want to spend that time reading or playing bamboo flutes instead? I don’t get it.)

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Another snow today, so I took the opportunity to snap a few shots from our balcony. I think we’re perfectly positioned as far as snow goes. It only snows enough to stick a few times a year, giving us the pleasures associated with it without most of the hassle.

Genbo is starting first grade next April at the school outlined below in red. It’s about a 15-20 minute walk.

Can already hear it: “Dad…Can you give me a riiiide?”
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On the other side of this mountain/big hill lies Kyoto
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So I upgraded to a D7000 yesterday, giving my mom the old trusty D90 in trade. (Thanks mom!)

I want to play with it, but I have been swamped with work. So, today I found a fallen leaf on my way to Starbucks to do some translation, and snapped this photo in between paragraphs. I like the new camera a lot.

It’s been cherry blossom season for a week or two, but the weather has been so rainy and cold I haven’t been able to get out and take any photos. Nor play shakuhachi under the cherries in Kyoto as I did last year for change. Today was finally semi-warm, so I took my macro lens with me out into town. As I was deciding how to take some non-boring pictures of cherry blossoms this bird alighted obligingly on a branch and made up my mind for me.

(“Birding” refers to a type of photography where people buy insanely expensive lenses to take incredibly boring pictures of birds. Sometimes these are actually good photographs, but pretty rarely. My own hypothesis is that these guys (and it always is guys) just like the technical challenge of shooting birds, and the fact that it’s a good excuse for buying a $10,000 lens.)

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I’ve blogged often about my friend Kamada Koji (鎌田幸二), who has been kind enough to devote decades of his life to becoming a master potter in the Tenmoku (天目) style just so that I could take macros of his stuff. Last week he held a yearly show at Takashimaya, one of the fancier Japanese department stores. I would have loved to bring my tripod, kick everybody out, and adjust the light to my specifications, but any picture-taking at all is ordinarily forbidden. I had his special permission, but still felt it was a good idea to be as discreet and fast as possible.

Kamada-san pointing center, with his wife Kazumi
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Tea powder holder with case
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Vase with cherry blossom branch
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Another tea powder holder with case
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Small vase with flower
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It’s exceedingly difficult to capture the nuances of nearly all his glazes, but this particular one most of all, because in real life the colors are not only extremely subtle, but they shift mercurially (almost literally because they are metallic crystals) with small changes in light.

Tea bowl
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Detail
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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.

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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).

Lower part of lake Biwa
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On the other side of that hill lies Kyoto
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