Jeffrey E.F. Friedl's Blog, page 34

Unexpectedly Snowy Photoshoot at the Joshokoji Temple

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Three Photographers

but only one crazy enough to take her jacket off and be the model.

At the Joshokoji Temple (常照皇寺) in the mountains of far northern Kyoto

Through the cycle group that I mentioned last week, I
met photographer (and triathlete) Kumiko Mini, who as it
happened was expecting photographer friends from San Francisco to join her
for a week of photography fun in Kyoto. I got to tag along on a trip into
the mountains where they planned to do a little photoshoot at a temple far
away from the crowds of the city.

There was no forecast for snow, but as we got into the mountains the
flakes started coming and got thicker by the minute. The
mountains turned splendid with a puffy, frosty blanket...

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By the time we stopped for a picture, I'd gotten to know Eric and Gigi for an hour, by which
time they'd cemented themselves as fun to be around and fun to talk
photography...

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Eric and Gigi

hamming it up for my lens

They'd come to Kyoto to give their new Pentax medium format(!) SLR and delicious lens a workout.

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Checking Settings

Meanwhile Kumiko is shooting her Canon...

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Three different brands, but somehow we remained friends. I just lament that I couldn't borrow lenses(!)

The snow is the heavy, sticky kind, but since Eric and Gigi had only the
one camera between them, Eric was available for other tasks while Gigi
shot...

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Making Himself Useful








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Now for Kumiko

We eventually moved on to the temple while the snow increased.

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Entrance Path

Joshokoji Temple (常照皇寺)

I'd been here once before, during cherry-blossom season two years ago,
as seen in “On
The Way Into Kyoto’s Northern-Mountain Joshoko-ji Temple”. This time it
was a bit different.

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Thin Flimsy Branches

positively pregnant with snow

Kumiko wore a kimono-inspired dress so that she could be a model, and with the snow falling and the place to ourselves,
it seemed an opportunity to take advantage of.

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Quick Test








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(My Quick Test)

It was freezing literally and figuratively, but Kumiko took her jacket off for some shots...

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Pretending It's Cherry Blossoms








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Okay, Enough of That








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Eric's Turn

with the medium-format SLR








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Quick Triage

My confidence driving in the snow plummeted with this
abandon-the-car-in-the-snow event some years back, at least if I don't
have snow tires, which I didn't now. So, I was getting a bit
worried about the hour's twisty-mountain-drive ride home. But we'd come all this way, so we may as well
take a peek at what's at the top of the steps...

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Heading Up

... and through the gate at the top we saw this:

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Outer Garden
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Compare to this August view of the same scene.

To be continued...

New Lightroom Plugin: People Support

Example Of My New Plugin in Action

I've finally released a new plugin for Adobe Lightroom that I've been working on for some time,
my “People Support” plugin. Once configured,
it can tell you the age of people in a photo, and include that data in exports.

It's consumed me for weeks. The idea of calculating and displaying a person's age seems quite straightforward and simple,
doesn't it? It's not. Date calculations are
surprisingly fraught with complexity, and presentation all the more
so when you take into account dealing with all the languages that Lightroom
can work in.

English is simple in that we use the same “year” word for
dealing with how long ago something happened (“this picture was taken five years ago”) and how old someone is (“this kid is five years old”). Not all languages are
so simple... Japanese, for example, uses completely different words for
“years” when
talking about ages.

Then you have to take into account special cases, such as the day of birth,
or even when someone is tagged in a photo before they're born (think ultrasound scan).

There's still plenty of features I'd like to add, but what I'm releasing today is a good start.
Notably missing, for example, is a way to inject people information into exported captions when you're not using
one of my many export/publish plugins. But if you are,
the configuration for who's name and/or age should appear is remarkably powerful. A standalone solution will come later.

The plugin is here

Exploring The Mountains of Northern Kyoto by Bicycle

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Pausing for a Quick Photo

on a bicycle ride in the mountains north of Kyoto

left to right: Kumiko Mini,
Lianca Van Der Merwe,
Antti Riikonen, and
Ross McLean

Today I made my first “real” bicycling ride. Normally the bicycle is just for transportation from one place
to the other, and not my first choice for either exercise nor pleasure, but I recently replaced my 10-year-old
mamachari (“Mama Chariot”, heavy, built like a tank,
and can carry oodles of kids and stuff) with a lighter cross bike.

今日は初めての本物の自転車でツアーイング。新しい友達と一緒に55キロの山巡り。大原と貴船を見に行きました。

Through the
Cycling Kyoto Facebook group I learned that some folks would have a “slow
easy” ride today, so I thought it was a good opportunity to give it a
try.

We ended up going 55km (34 miles) up into the mountains and back. The “and back” part was easier.

We met up at the Sanjo St. bridge at 11am, and soon headed off...

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City Riding

heading north on Kawabata St.

川端通で北へ








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Back Street








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First Sight of Nature

along the Kamo River (賀茂川)








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Mountains Where We're Heading








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Heading Up

it's been a mild ascent the whole 25 minutes it took to get here,

but now it's starting in earnest








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Oh Deer!

construction








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Village








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Steep

坂がきつい

It wasn't all that steep as far as mountains go, but it was certainly
the most steep road I'd ever taken on a bike. It rose 210m over about 900m
length. Since it was my first ride I decided that I would always stay at
the back. This gave me a great excuse to rest if I wasn't the slowest, and
if I was the slowest, well, what do you expect from the guy at the back?

It turns out that Lianca's normal road bike is in the shop, so she was using a heavy mountain bike,
which wasn't really appropriate for this kind of riding. So, I could take it easy most of the time.

The trip down the other side of the mountain was equally steep...

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Coasting

We stopped by the Family Mart near the Sanzenin Temple. I've visited that temple
numerious
times in the past,
but I would have never imagined going that far by bicycle.

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Ross's New Bike

taking a break

We then retraced our path part way...

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Ohara Countryside

(taken 1-handed at 30kph)

This time I thought I'd try to stay with the two guys when we retraced our steps back up the aforementioned steep climb....

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Starting the Ascent

Coming off an injury, Ross is riding for the first time in a month and
so was taking it “slow and easy”, and Antti was kind enough to slow down to
keep him company. I hadn't really been taxed in the 20km we'd done so far,
but the photo above was the last I saw of them for quite a while. They made
it look effortless, but I can assure you it was most certainly not
effortless.

Still, I made it to the pass without passing out or even stopping, and so I waited for the
rest of the group and tried to catch an “action shot” as they came by (though I realize now
that I should have set up a bit downhill, so they'd have some speed...)

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Kumiko








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Lianca








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Single-Handed Snapshot

at 50.3kph, downhill








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Flat(ish) Countryside

Having retraced our steps for 8km, we headed back into the mountains, toward Kibune.

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Staying With Ross

(for a short moment)

貴船へ

Somewhere near Kibune we stopped for a quick photo, seen at the start of this post.

Sharp readers will of course recall that the same bridge guardrail appeared on my blog eight years ago,
at the end of “Getting Ready for Summer, in Kibune”.

Then some quick individual snaps...

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Ross McLean

very Mc, very Lean








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Antti Riikonen








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Lianca Van Der Merwe








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KUMIKO mini








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Ross's Shoe Covers

were so incredibly brilliant pink that the camera couldn't capture them properly








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Chatting, Oblivious

to the guys already leaving in the background

Since I wasn't in any of the group pictures, I thought I'd at least grab
a snap of myself for my own memory, on one of the road-curve mirrors
ubiquitous in the mountains of Japan.

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“OSHA Orange”

is the color of my windbreaker. I call it my “Ninja Jacket”.








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Hitting the Touristy Area








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Short Pause

at the entrance to the Kibune Shrine (貴船神社)








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Something Is Just Not Quite Right

about this shot, as we head a bit farther up the mountain.

Can you tell what it is, and explain it? (Hint: it's not Photoshop)








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High Point of Our Trip

410m, at the Kibune Shrine Okumiya (貴船神社奥宮)









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Still Plenty of Snow








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Plotting The Return Home









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It's All Downhill From Here

Since the ride was done save for returning home, the two guys took off
at their own speed, and we never saw them again. After getting down into
town, I decided to pop over to a park where I knew Anthony was playing with
friends. The moment I said “bye” to the other two I'd been returning with
and was on my own in the city, the bike ceased to be fun. It was now just
drudgery “get to Point B” work.

So, while I enjoyed the first 45km of the trip, it's the social aspect of it
that appealed to me. The last 11k was drudgery.

Anyway, here's what the Google Earth shows for my ride:

The red arrow is about where this post's lead photo was taken.

Later that evening, I had dinner at Via Transito, the Italian restaurant
located here
owned by friend Salvo Mannino.
Salvo had helped me buy my new bike, and had introduced me to the Kyoto Cycling group, so I wanted to stop
by to thank him and report on my ride.

Damien and Kumiko joined me and Anthony for a wonderful dinner and conversation.

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Chatting with Salvo

Via Transito Italian Restaurant

I remembered to take a picture of the salad, but then forgot after that. It was tasty.

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Salad with Cheeze and Potato








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Making a Pizza

My neck and shoulders are a bit sore from the ride, but otherwise I seem not too much worse for wear. Not sure when I'll do such a thing again, but it was a wonderful day for the experience, made all the better by the company I lucked into having.

Was a good day.

The 2015 Young-Adult Archery Event at the Sanjusangendo Temple

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Archery Bows

as far as the eye can see

at the Sanjusangendo Temple (三十三間堂), Kyoto Japan

Today was the annual toshiya archery event for new adults at the
Sanjusangendo Temple (三十三間堂) here in Kyoto. I blogged about it extensively three years ago starting with
“Traditional Archery Like a Boss”.

I then followed up with what turned into one of my most popular series of posts, starting with
“Total Discipline: Anatomy of a Japanese Archer’s Shot”,
followed by a note about
the crowds and the
hubub outside and
the instructors taking their turn (“More Badass Japanese Archery”) and
then a look at the colorful wardrobes of the ladies and then perhaps
my favorite post on the subject: “Badass Japanese Archery: Now It’s The Ladies’ Turn”
(followed by more and more ladies)
and then finally more instructors. Phew!

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Posing Behind a Veil of Bows

I'll post more about the day later, but for now just a few photos...

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Camaraderie









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Juggling

phone, lunch, purse









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Nervous Anticipation

one lifetime, 60 seconds, two arrows









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Celebration

(they perhaps think it's of youth or of archery, but it's really of friendship)










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A Single Hair

was apparently out of place

(I love the juxtaposition of the rough thick masculine archery glove, and everything else)









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Wonderfully Colorful

men traditionally wear just black and white, but I for one appreciate the bold color










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Silk, Leather, Feathers, and Wood











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At Full Draw

yet, something just isn't quite right...

To be continued...

Inside the “New” Temple Building at Shogunzuka Overlooking Kyoto

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Geometric Temple

the “new” temple building at Shogunzuka, Kyoto Japan

将軍家の新しい本堂（元は道場でした）

This post continues from “New Views of Kyoto
from Shogunzuka’s New Observation Deck”, about some big construction at
Shougunzuka (将軍家) on a mountain overlooking eastern Kyoto that finally
completed last fall. This post looks at the “new” temple building.

In that previous post I showed this photo of the new temple building from the outside:

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This looks a bit odd for a temple building, and from the back you can see that it has what appears to be distinctly-new and distinctly-old sections:

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From the Back

後ろからの景色







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Entrance

flanked by shelves where one can put their shoes, which must be taken off before entering

Above the entrance is a richly engraved/painted sign showing the name of
the place. It's rare for me to see one new with all its splendid colors...
normally they haven't been painted in 100 years, and any paint fragments
that might remain are well faded. With that being the norm, this new one
was almost grotesque in its vibrance:

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“Blue Dragon Rank”

I'm not really sure how the name (青龍段) would translate, so that's just a guess

Even the little cushion-pillows between the sign and the holders were splendidly new:

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Puffy

The wood was clearly quite old, made to look all the older by the newness of some of the embellishments:

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Old and New

Inside it looked nothing like a normal temple...

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I asked about it, and it turns out that it's an old dojo
(martial-arts arena, like this). It had been carefully dismantled and brought here piece by piece,
then painstakingly reassembled.

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Wonderful Ceiling








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From the Side

entrance is on the left; the temple altar is off to the right

The new part of the building seen tacked on in the “From the Back” shot
is where they put the altar and all the religious stuff, and in the shot
above it's just out of frame to the right, where all the warm incandescent
light is spilling into the dojo.

I know enough not to use a camera inside a temple building without
asking, so that's the first thing I'd done when I came inside, before even
asking about the building's history. I was told that it was fine so long as
I don't photograph the altar area, so I didn't. Moments after talking to
me, the lady had to go stop a Japanese guy from taking pictures of the
altar.

The shape of the building made photography fun...

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Repairs

you can see many spots where the wood was repaired

(though it's not clear that all repairs are recent)







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From The Old Observation Tower

with the new observation deck behind, and north-east Kyoto in the background

Kyoto At Night During a Heavy Snow, Part 3

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Should Have Made This a Wigglegram

2:20am at the Nanzen Temple, Kyoto Japan

南禅寺の正因庵、大雪の後、午前2時20分

A continuation from part one and
part two of my nighttime stroll during
a rare snowstorom in Kyoto on the early morning of January 3rd.

The photo above is much less impressive than the actual view was, with
the trees receding at various stages up the mountain in the background in
crisp relief to the temporarily-clear sky, it had a particularly
three-dimensional feel, with added weight and depth due to the
heavily-laden trees.

I wish I would have made it a Wigglegram.
When this thought first popped in my mind as I wrote the caption above, it
was as a joke, because a wigglegram's frames are usually captured in a
burst that lasts but a second or so, and the shot above took 10 seconds
just by itself.

But now that I think about it, with nothing moving in the frame but the
clouds and stars, I could have spent a few minutes and a bit of care in
moving the tripod to capture frames from positions a meter or two apart,
and in between. Maybe next time.

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First Photo of the Evening

12:00 midnight

( from the middle of an intersection, because I could )







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Frosted-Covered Trees

(The picture above is so tall and narrow because the wide-angle shot
taken up at an angle required quite a bit of perspective correction to make
upright things look upright, which if left uncropped leaves wedges of
non-image int the lower corners like this, and I didn't
want the wedges this time.)

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Bus Stops

the same trees as above, with a bus stop, a street, and another bus stop in between







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Disappointed

The dark blur in the middle of the street is a young couple of about 20,
who had trudged through the snow to visit the Heian Shrine, presumably for
their hatsumode, a traditional first visit to a shrine in the new
year. They assumed, as I would have assumed, that a shrine as popular as
the Heian Shrine would be open continuously during the first few days of
the year.

As it happened, during the big snowfall on January 1st, I'd asked a worker at the shrine their hours, thinking that I might show up early the next morning to get some
snowy photos of their garden (as I was lucky enough to get seven years ago). It turns out that they keep normal hours, so the site is closed from 9pm until 6am (with the garden opening at about 8:30).

It was about 12:30am when I talked to the young couple, so they had
5½ hours to kill. They did an about face and trudged away.

At least the view that they could see from the street was nice:

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The Heian Shrine

12:34am

平安神宮、京都市岡崎 · 午前0時34分
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The falling snow isn't very visible in the long exposure (two seconds) above, but it's quite evident in
this similar shot posted the other day, which
was taken with a 1/20th-second exposure.

The snow was very sticky, and readily stuck on improbably-vertical surfaces, such as street-light poles...

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Different kinds of trees took the snow differently, with some barely getting any accumulation, but others
having every little branch and twig swell fivefold in thickness with snow, such as this row of trees...

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Fluffy

The blur at left was an old lady walking. It was the last person I saw for two and a half hours.

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Fittingly Cold

The ultra-modern-design cement garage entrance to what I assume is a very, very rich persons house seemed quite at home in the snow.

Yet equally at home just a few paces down the same wall was the warm non-car entrance...

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This got me thinking about entryways, and I ended up photographing a
bunch of them. (The most tastefully presented was Larry Ellison's, seen here as the lead photo of
my first post in this series, so all the ones I post today will be
second-tier at best.)

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Even Warmer







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Slightly Cool







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A Bit Aloof







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Breaking Clouds

1:30am · 午前１時半

As I mentioned
in Part 2, the snow finally let up at about this time and I could use
the camera much more freely, without trying to protect it and the lens from
sticky snow. The snow came and went for the next three and a half hours
that I was out.

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Whre is the Big Gate?

When I first arrived at the Nanzen Temple (南禅寺), I set up the camera at the base of the path leading up
to the big entrance gate, and though it was quite dark (much darker than it appears in any of these photos), I thought I should have been able to see the murky outline of the gate, but I couldn't.

Then I realized that I had to move 30m over to the next path. Doh!

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Found It

南禅寺の三門，午前２時

Going up the path, crossing over and through the gate to where the path continues on the other side,
you're greeted with this view of a main temple building with a massive roofed incense pot out front:

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This particular little section of path always makes me think of this photo of
Anthony when he was 4½. The incense pot can be seen in more
detail in this
shot from a different post.

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Side Entrance to Somewhere

It was exceedingly dark where I took this, and I couldn't see much but an outline. A 20-second exposure helps to make things clear. The map tells me that it's an entrance to a “Hojo Tearoom” (南禅寺の方丈).

Not far away was a set of steps and a couple of entrances that were brightly lit, so this exposure is only 1.3 seconds long...

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Back to the big gate, here's a side view. By now it's 3:10am...

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Big Gate Side View

南禅寺の三門、横から、午前3時10分







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Quiet Entrance

to the Tenjuan Temple

南禅寺の天授庵の入り口

I've been inside only once, two years ago, but it made an impression. I think I snapped over a thousand photos during the visit, including one of
my early wigglegrams,
and these photos. It's much quieter at 3:30am.

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Bicycle Parking

(this is common in Japan, but I've always wondered

who just leaves bikes lying around overnight?)

Back out into civilization, to Sanjo Street, a shot at the base of “The Incline” looking up the hill, which
at this point was a field of snow-covered ice....

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Big Hill

蹴上駅の近くの三条通り







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Sanjo Street a bit Later

in front of the Westin Miyako







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Cut into the Ice

remnants of something big and heavy with chains on the wheels







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Looking Back Up The Hill

To be continued...

Advice for an Across-the-USA RV Trip?

We're planning a family trip across the US by RV in March, from San
Francisco to Cleveland. It's not the kind of thing I've done before (well,
not since I was 10), so I'd appreciate any advice anyone might be able to
offer.

In particular, I'd want to have phone and internet access while on the
road. All the phones we have here in Japan are simlocked , so I'd have to
probably buy a couple of cheap phones, and perhaps rent a mobile hotspot? Suggestions
appreciated...

Kyoto At Night During a Heavy Snow, Part 2

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“This is Miserable”

「これは大変ですね」

comment to me in passing by lady walking in the middle of the street at 4:15am

after Kyoto's biggest snow in more than 60 years

She could have been commenting on my inability to set up the tripod, aim
the camera, and actually focus the shot properly in time, but I think she was
talking about the weather.

これは真夜中の大雪中の撮影散歩の続きの記事です。
今朝の零時から５時間の散歩をしました、平安神宮と南禅寺の周辺で。
京都新聞により,
61年ぶりに２０センチを超えました。

At 7am this morning I posted “Kyoto At Night
During a Heavy Snow” after having spent the night wandering around my
area of Kyoto with a camera and tripod. I suspected that the evening's snowfall had beat the
record-breaking snow of the previous day, and indeed now after four hours
of sleep I see in the
paper that it was the 4th most snow on record for Kyoto city proper,
and the most since almost a foot and a half fell one day in January 1954.

Some folks were out and about, but for the most part I had the area to myself.

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The Childlike Pleasure

of just standing in the middle of an open street

Jingu Street, 12:15am

京都市左京区、神宮道、午前０時１５分

I like the snow when it's photogenic and I don't have to drive (this event several
years ago pretty much scarred my snow-driving confidence), but a quick heavy wet snow
has its drawbacks. One problem was keeping snow off the lens (I fumbled with an
umbrella while trying to work the camera), and another was that snow or things weighted down
by snow could come crashing down any time.

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The Calm Before the Crash

front gate of the Heian Shrine

平安神宮

Seconds after taking the shot above, one of the snow-laden big branches
to the left came crashing down. The sound as it was ripped from the tree
and then crashed through other branches on the way to a huge thud
was impressive. (Photographically it was less impressive... a shot 10
seconds later merely shows an empty spot where the branch used to be.)

When I was near the Heian Shrine I would sometimes see folks out for a
stroll, or out to take pictures, or just walking home, but once I got onto
the back streets, I went two and a half hours without seeing or hearing
another soul.

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Deserted









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Positively Pregnant

heavily laden with snow

午前一時半位、雪は止んだ。落雪はまだヤバい！

The snow stopped for a while at about 1:30am and I could work with the
camera a bit more freely, but I was well aware that huge masses of snow
could come down from the branches (or with the branches) onto my
head and lens at any time. I was careful and took calculated risks.

Occasionally I'd hear the rending of a branch, or more commonly the huge
thump of a big pile of snow hitting the ground. Then in the Nanzen Temple
I came across a tree that had quite-recently fallen...

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Fallen Tree

at the Nanzen Temple

南禅寺の落ちた木、午前３時半

You can tell from the car tracks running right through it that the tree had fallen after most
of the snow had fallen, but enough snow had accumulated on it to show that it hadn't just fallen. It was now 3:30am; I'm guessing it fell an hour or two prior.

It fell in about the same location that these kids
are standing.

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Strong Rope

I came back into civilization at about 4am at Sanjo Street, at The Incline. It's an area with a steep hill that was put to use 120 years ago when Japan's
first power generator was built, flinging water down the hill in pipes to
slam into water turbines. I half expected to find lots of abandoned cars
and accidents, but there were just a couple of taxis paused by the side of
the road...

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“Beware of Icing — 0°C”

Sanjo Street, near the Westin Miyako Hotel

三条通り、インクラインとウェスティン都ホテル京都の間








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Pure Ice

at the bottom of a long, steep, winding hill

めっちゃ凍結してる

I'm not sure which would be more crazy... trying to drive in this with a car, or a bicycle...

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Valiant Effort









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Even More Valiant

motorcycle delivery of some sort... likely newspapers









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Pointless

he ended up pushing the bicycle for the most part

To be continued...

Kyoto At Night During a Heavy Snow

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Chez Larry à Kyoto

Entrance to Larry Ellison's Villa in Kyoto

Kaiusou Villa (何有荘，京都), Kyoto Japan
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三日の零時から５時間、大雪のなかで京都市東山周辺でカメラと三脚と一緒に散歩しました。

At 100,000,000 US dollars for the single-family residence, I suppose it's not a Motel 6, but
apparently he'll leave the light on for you nevertheless.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is reported to have bought this villa near my
house several years ago, for a reported 100 million US dollars, though
it's not known whether he's ever actually visited it in person. It's been reported,
though, that he's pouring an additional 100 million dollars into renovations.

(Larry's house has appeared on my blog once before, here.)

Anyway, I wasn't outside his front door at 3:40 am just to loiter. I had finished my most recent
post about the big New Year's Day snow at 11:40pm, and then immediately
went out to photograph another big snow that had started not long
before.

I was out until 5am. It snowed heavily for the fist couple of hours... I'd bet that yesterday's 58-year-old Kyoto-snowfall record was easily
broken again.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 13 sec, f/14, ISO 1600 —
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The Nanzen Temple

南禅寺の三門
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Squall

The shot above is one that really illustrates to me my lack of skill
with the camera. The branch seen in the shot was very large, and it held a
huuuuuuge amount of snow. I was taking a real risk to merely be
under it, and quickly took a photo with the intent to illustrate both the
amount of snow and the risk. But neither really shows up in the end result.
)-:

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Circular Moonbow?

I suppose it's ice crystals in the upper atmosphere, but I'm not really
sure what causes this kind of circular rainbow around the moon. The colors were much more pronounced than you see here, particularly with the
blue/indigo/violet areas of the rainbow, which were clearly visible at a
glance, but don't seem to show up in this shot.

(I've shown the same affect much better, during a solar eclipse, here and here.)

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Building at the Nanzenji Temple







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Sanjo Street

at 4am on a very snowy Saturday morning

午前４時の三条通り








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Main Gate of the Heian Shrine

with a festival food stall getting ready for the early-morning shrine-visiting crowd

平安神宮の大鳥居の下の屋台、初詣のお客様に準備中

Continued here...

More From That Big New-Year’s-Day Snow in Kyoto

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Snowy Heian Shrine

Kyoto Japan

平安神宮、京都市

As I mentioned Yesterday, New Year's Day brought Kyoto's biggest snow in 60ish
years. I went out for a bit in the evening to snap some pics and
play with Anthony.

It was really coming down...

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Compare that shot to the lead shot on this post.

The snow just stuck to whatever it first touched, and accumulated in improbable amounts on the most insubstantial
of surfaces....

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The moment I walked outside I knew that the expressway (whose nearest entrance is more than 6km away) was closed,
because when it closes, traffic ends up bogged down on my street...

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Expressway Refugees








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Not Much Traffic Here








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But Lots of Snow Play








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Bus Stop









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Seating Available

Kyoto Prefectural Library, Okazaki








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Clearing the Slide

as a matter of public service, of course








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Festival

Earlier in the day, when there wasn't a flake of snow, I took lots of
pictures with the intent to write about the new-year's crowds. This whole
are was packed with folks making their first shrine visit of the new year. At the time, the road was closed to vehicles and was lined with food vendors. Now the vendors have battened down the hatches until tomorrow.

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Entrance Gate

Heian Shrine








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Lame Impersonation

of this shot when he was four








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Splats in Waiting

on a side building

The slumping snow on the roof made me think of

“When You Tempt Fate, Sometimes You Lose”








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Main Building

Heian Shrine

Then it was time for more snow play with Anthony...

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Moving Target

By the time I put the camera aside to play, my hands were so frozen that I couldn't feel
them other than by proxy through the pain. At the shrine it had gotten to where I couldn't
tell whether I had pressed the shutter button or anything... I had lost any sense of touch in
my right hand, so I was taking shots with my left. I hadn't been that cold since I was a kid.

When I started to play with Anthony, my right hand hurt so much I just couldn't do it, so
I shoved it under my armpit for five minutes to warm it, with that exquisitely painful
pain one gets when an over-cold finger or toe is warming. Wow, it really really hurt.

But oddly, after that I was fine for the rest of the night. We threw snowballs and such for well over an hour and they didn't feel so much as
chilly again. Odd.

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Canal

looking a bit like cherry blossoms, the snow here reminds me of this








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Impromptu Elevator Selfie

with both camera and self slightly snow encrusted

I'd mentioned at the end of yesterday's post that
the forecast was for more snow overnight and that I might try to get up to photograph in the morning.
Neither happened. I was so tired (from the snowball play, I suppose) that I slept until 10:30am! It turns out no new snow fell anyway.

This evening (it's 11:30pm as I write this) the snow is coming down hard again, and it looks to be more
than yesterday. Probably I'll head out tonight even for a bit after posting this, lest I have to wait
another 58 years for a similar chance...

Update: it turns out I had to wait only one day for a bigger snow.