Jeffrey E.F. Friedl's Blog, page 39

A Really Gross Discovery On The Way Into an Otherwise Beautiful Temple

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 280 —
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Scene of the Discovery

entrance to the Rurikou-in Temple (瑠璃光院), Kyoto Japan

Nov 2012

More from the archives as I wade through my photo library, this time a
gross discovery in November 2012. On our way into the Rurikou-in Temple
(瑠璃光院) in Kyoto, Damien and I discovered a weird wire-like “thing”
twisting and withering energetically on the steps.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2500 —
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Thin and Wirelike

curling/uncurling haphazardly, almost violently

めちゃイヤ！ハリガネムシです。








Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 —
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Shoe for Scale

I had never seen anything like it. My first
thought was that it was a piece of wire that was
caught by the wind or something, but it quickly became apparent that it was
alive. It was too thin and hard to be any kind of
worm I'd ever heard of, so I was dumbfounded.

It caught the attention of an old man going by, and he said that when he
was a kid, these things would emerge from praying mantises. It was some
kind of parasite. They'd see a praying mantis acting strangely, he said,
and dip it in water and voila, the worm-like thing would emerge from
the insect's rear end.

Yuuuuuck!

With this disquieting thought in mind, we left the worm-like organism to itself and continued up the steps, when lo and behold
a few steps later we came to the body of a dazed mantis...

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 7200 —
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Discarded Host

つかれられた生息地








Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1600 —
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Old Man Shows Us

where the wire/worm thing had emerged from

I did some investigation on the web, and this is more disgusting than I could have imagined.

The worm/wire thing is called a horsehair worm (the
Japanese translates to “wire bug”), and they are the stuff nightmares are
made of.

It turns out that the microscopic larva of the thing was drunk by some
insect, which was then eaten by the mantis. That's how the larve gets into
the mantis' gut. The larva then grows big enough
to bore out of the gut and into the body cavity, and grows there into
adulthood (inside the mantis, eventually filling its entire body cavity; it
ends up being several times longer than the host). When it's ready to
emerge, it wants to do so in water, so it somehow alters the mantis' brain
to make it seek water like a thirst-crazed zombie. The
mantis normally drowns itself in the process, at which point the
worm-thing crawls out to go live its happy life, make (microscopic) babies,
and start the cycle all over again.

Not for the faint of heart, but this video explains it in short,
and there are many videos showing them in action (in English
and in Japanese).

ハリガネムシのは聞いた事無かった。面白いですが、かなりいやです。ビデオはこちらです。

Gross. Just gross.

This mantis was not near the water, so maybe it was dying and the worm decided to bail early. I dunno. Yuck.

And so to not end on that thought, here is a quick look at the wonderful moss just inside the entrance to the temple...

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2500 —
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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1100 —
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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 5600 —
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What I Learned on My Personal-Best Mt. Hiei Climb #6 (just how stupid I am)

Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/160 sec, f/10, ISO 100 —
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Big Stupid Dummy

me, after a personal-best fastest hike to the top of Mt. Hiei

馬鹿の私、比叡山の山頂で。早く出来ましたけれども、途中で右足首をねんざしました。

I made my sixth hike to the top of Kyoto's Mt. Hiei yesterday, with the
goal being simply: fast I could get to the top? I really enjoyed
last week's hike with
Damien, because he's fun to chat with and it's enjoyable to hike with friends,
but it left me wondering how fast I could do on my own, if I concentrated only on
getting to the top quickly. No stopping for photography, no stopping for rests, no
stopping for energy snacks, no stopping to chat with other hikers. No stopping to enjoy nature. Just go. Fast.

To recap my history here, my first hike 2½ years ago was a
glorious failure, recounted in the appropriately-titled “The Agony Where Bravado
Yields, In Spectacular Fashion, To Painful Reality”. I hadn't realized
just how out of shape I had been, so it's that hike that spurred me to get
in shape. I think I've done pretty well, and now, at 48, I'm in the best
shape of my life.

On that first hike 2½ years ago, pushed by the unrelenting pace of my in-shape hiking partner,
the trip from the small shrine near the trailhead
to the small clearing about half way up took 48 minutes.
Yesterday it took 41.

Seven minutes faster is nice, but it's an underwhelming improvement for 2½ years of work. However, I was in much better shape
for the rest of the hike to come, and forewent the 10-minute rest stop here (and other rest stops I'd needed that first time),
and continued past without pause to the meaty part of the hike.

I made good time to the scenic end of the hike proper.
(I consider “the hike proper” to be from the shrine near the trailhead to this scenic rest spot.)

The hike proper took 127 minutes (2h 7m) the first time, but only 82 minutes (1h 22m) yesterday, an improvement of 45 minutes.

二年前の第一回の比叡山ハイキングは２時間７分間かかった。今回(第５回目)には１時間２２分間かかりました。

That's a great improvement, but the real achievement is in the
surrounding context. That first time it had taken 181 minutes (3h 1m) to
reach this point by foot after leaving my house, and by the time I got here I was almost
comatose with thorough fatigue.
This time that same trip took only 111 minutes (1h 51m), and yet I felt great. In fact, I
didn't even break stride as I passed the
end of the “hike proper” to continue the short distance to the bus stop at
the summit.

From front door to summit: 116 minutes (1h 56m). That's a lot better than the first time I
hiked to the summit (my second Mt. Hiei hike),
where with ample stops it took more than five hours.)

One key in going fast was not stopping. During yesterday's hike, between
my front door and the summit, I stopped moving
only three times. One was for a red light early on at an intersection in the city on
the way to the trailhead. One was at the
90-minute mark where I stopped for a few minutes for a drink, in
hopes that it would rejuvenate the tiredness that had sunk in. (Answer: it
didn't, so it was just a wasted three
minutes.)

And at 21 minutes into the hike proper, I
twisted my ankle while running on a
down-slope portion of the trail. One
moment I was running with the grace of a
gazelle floating on the wind, and the next I was hitting
the ground like a sack of rocks unceremoniously
shoved off the back of the Stupid Truck. At that
moment, withering in pain, I decided it
was time to take a short rest.

Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/60 sec, f/3.3, ISO 320 —
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Forced Rest

taking a survey for broken bones

(the photo was to mark my location, but my stupid Garmin GPS unit failed to keep the track)

ねんざをした時に。痛かった。その後のハイキングは１時間以上かかりました。

To offer a bit of background, recall that on my 3rd Mt. Hiei
hike four months ago, I'd actually hiked back
down the mountain instead of taking the train
or bus I'd taken other times.
Hiking downhill has always been really hard on my knees,
but it turned out that the biggest danger was that I
kept twisting my ankle. After half a dozen
small twists (each resulting in a painful crash
to the ground, and much swearing and worrying about broken bones), you'd
think I'd figure out how to walk properly, but no matter how careful I was, it would still happen over and over.

So yesterday, on the way up, when I
encountered a section of the trail with
a downhill slope, I'd pick
up the pace to a fast jog, but was
extremely mindful of my propensity to twist my ankle. I was very careful.

In particular, when I approached a
particularly rough area, my active thought was “be extra careful here”, and with that thought forefront in mind, I suddenly, inexplicably, found myself crashing
to the ground with great force. I peppered the
palm of my left hand with holes from rocks or roots or whatnot, and did the
same to my left knee (and my new Under Armour compression
leggings).

The only two reasons I can imagine for twisting my ankle despite such attention is that either
I'm blind or stupid.

I'm not blind.

Peppering my body with painful holes is one thing, but it's my right
ankle that got most attention. Oh, and as a data
point for health-care researchers: cursing loudly in English in a Japanese forest does not seem to mitigate the
damage from a sprain.

After a few minutes, I stood up to gingerly give it a
try. I still had more than an hour of hiking to the top, so
if my ankle was too bad to continue, I could hobble back to the trailhead which,
conveniently, is off the parking lot of one of Kyoto's best hospitals, so
I'd be able to get immediate treatment. But it
wasn't that bad, and I continued on. It
didn't exactly hurt, but it remained noticeable longer than before.
For a half hour it felt “hinky” (for lack of
a better word), but it seemed to have worked
itself out by the time I reached the summit.

Until I stood up after a few minutes' rest. It was
bothering me again. An hour's bus ride
back down and a short walk home, and I took off my socks to reveal that I'd done some real
damage.

Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/40 sec, f/3.3, ISO 400 —
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Justice Served

if you are stupid in how you hike, you get troubles like this

I'd been planning to do a couple of fairly active classes at the gym, but I bailed on those and just
did some upper-body weight training. In the evening, I treated the swelling with copious amounts of jasmine plum wine
and baked chicken at Uroko, with Damien.

Today it's starting to turn pretty colors, and is very stiff. If I hobble carefully, I can
get around without pain, so the sprain is mild by most
standards.

So a few days after trumpeting being back in the
saddle health wise, I'm back to limited activity. I went swimming for a
while this evening with Anthony, and that went fine, so I hope that bodes
well for a quick recovery.

My next goal for a Mt. Hiei hike is to do it quickly and not
stupidly.

That Imperial Bridge, Funkified in Lightroom

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/30 sec, f/14, ISO 6400 —
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Throwaway Shot

just slightly embellished

Nov 2013, at the Sento Imperial Palace (仙洞御所), Kyoto Japan
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When I visited my photo library to continue where I
left off in last week's “An Autumn Visit to
the Sento Imperial Palace in Kyoto”,
I came across a
highly-overexposed bridge shot similar to the one that I did post.

Though shooting raw
affords me generous latitude to recover
from exposure mistakes, overexposure at some point washes out color to pure
white, from which there is no recovery. It was severely overexposed (not by
mistake, actually, but as part of a bracketed-exposure sequence) so I was
about to delete it from my photo archive, but first thought to give it the “Funky Joy”
treatment in Lightroom. I liked the result.

It's garish and fake, so I'm sure it's not to everyone's taste, but then again, not much is.

And while I'm at it, in the vein of
“How Many Faces Can One Portrait Have?”
and (from 7.5 years ago)
“From Sunset to Moonrise with Adobe Lightroom”,
here's one more view from the same original:

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/30 sec, f/14, ISO 6400 —
map & image data — nearby photos
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Back in the Saddle With Another Mt. Hiei Climb (and Thoughts on Under Armour Clothes and Stock)

Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/8 sec, f/3.3, ISO 400 —
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Heading Up Mt. Hiei

with Damien Douxchamps, but without a good camera

昨日、友達と一緒に比叡山を登った。小さいゴミのカメラしか無かったので、今回の写真はかなり質が悪いです。ごめん。

The past few months have conspired to keep me mostly inactive, with
travel, injuries, and colds weighing me down for most of the summer, but
I'm finally feeling pretty good, so when I came across some photos of a
previous hike up Kyoto's Mt. Hiei while tidying up my photo archive, I thought it
was about time to try it again, so the next morning I did it.

Luck would have it that Damien was available to give it a try, so we met
at the trailhead yesterday morning at 8:00.

This was my fifth hike of the mountain. I brought a full-frame SLR the
first,
second, and
third times.
On the fourth I just brought the iPhone,
but because the camera lacks quality (and the battery lacks endurance) I thought maybe
I'd get a step up with a small compact camera we have lying around, but wow was I wrong. The photo quality is just pathetic. So sorry about that.

Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/10 sec, f/3.3, ISO 400 —
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Muddy

you walk along/in a stream for just the first few minutes








Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/60 sec, f/3.3, ISO 320 —
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“Feeling Great!”

he was actually a bit tired

Damien has had his head buried in a startup business for almost the last
year, so hasn't gotten out for much exercise, so this was a sudden
challenge for him. Still, he did much better than I did my first time.

Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/15 sec, f/3.3, ISO 400 —
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More Water than Normal








Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/1000 sec, f/3.3, ISO 100 —
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So Stylish at the Top!

with bonus crazy hat hair

My clothes are all about function.

The leggings and shirt are from Under Armour's “Heat Gear” compression
line (which I've written about in the past here and here).

They're designed to be worn when it's hot, to wick away sweat and keep you
cool. They do a fantastic job of it.

These versions are of the “compression” type, which means the stretchy fabric
wears like a second skin. They have non-compression versions that apparently wick just as well,
but I like the compression
aspect because it makes you feel
more comfortable; it eliminates the sticky/clingy/yucky feeling of
a wet shirt. It's just
always there, so you don't feel any wet “cling”, and you also
don't feel sweat dripping down your back/arms/whatever. It's really just so much more comfortable than
a non-compression shirt such as
the Uniqlo “Dry” T
that I wrote about a couple of years ago. I still wear those when I'm
not exercising, but they're comparatively horrible for exercise.

I could get white and navy colors at Amazon Japan, but to add some variety
to my workouts while in The States this summer I picked up orange, bright blue
(to match my eyes, you know), and just to be odd, purple.

A side note about the company that makes these, Under Armour...

When I first gave them a try I
noticed the really high quality of their product right away, a feeling that
has only strengthened over the months as I've tried more products. But on top of that, while in The States for the summer, over the course of many
visits to a trampoline
park, I noticed that Under Armour was the predominant brand that the
kids were wearing. Not Nike, not Adidas, not Umbro, not New Balance, not
Champion. Five year olds, 10 year olds, 15-year olds (and adults).

These kids are already voting with their parents' money, and will soon
vote with their own. Under Armour, it seems, is “cool” with the young generation,
and I think this bodes very well for Under Armour's future because one's idea
of style sticks with us as we age.

(When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, a red sweater vest was the epitome
of “old” and “grandpa”, because back then, that's what old men wore.
They wore it because they thought it looked good, because when they were kids in the 40s and 50s,
it did look good. Back then, a red sweater vest was the epitome of preppy cool, and that
fashion sense stuck with the men even though it didn't stick with the general culture.)

This certainly wasn't the limit of my research, but I ended up buying a
few shares of Under Armour
stock. With a market cap of $15B it's quite risky... that's 1/5th the
market cap of Nike, but the company doesn't “feel” like it has nearly that
much presence, so it's got to grow into its pricing. In most trailing comparisons
to Nike it seems overpriced,
but it's smaller and has more momentum, so those expectations are built into the current price. On Wall Street, “expectations” can be quite fickle, so it wouldn't surprise me to see this
stock level out for a year or two at half its current price, but it also wouldn't surprise me to see
it much higher five and ten years out.

We'll see. I'm in at $69.61/share.

僕が好きな運動用の服のメーカーはアンダーアーマーです。
値段は一寸高いけれども、質が最高です。ジムでは結構人気ですが、この間アメリカで気が付くのはこのブランドは若者にかなり
人気です。品質がよい＋人気はいい組み合わせので、会社の株を一寸買いました。将来はどうかな〜？

Anyway, back to yesterday's climb. Because it
was Damien's first time, I let him set the pace, and we made it in 2h 18m.
That about what it took on my first time (2h 8m), but Damien was in
much better shape at the end than I had been. For example, he can
stand:

Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/100 sec, f/3.3, ISO 100 —
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Not So Much Worse for Wear

I'll have to try again by myself sometime soon, to see if I can beat the
1h 37m time of the previous hike. But it's so painful to do it with a
crappy camera, I'll have to give some thought into what to do there.

Revisiting a Graveyard of Abandoned Temple Monuments in the Mountains of Kyoto

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1250 —
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Keeping a Weary Eye on Things

京都の田舎にある無縁仏に

A followup of sorts to a four-year-old post about
a dumping ground in Kyoto for no-longer-sponsored temple monuments.
Wandering through my photo archive, I came across this set and thought to post a few more from that outing...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/16, ISO 6400 —
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Paul and a Packed Field of Monuments








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Plausible Guess

I can guess why the headless figurine found its way here








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Nice Light

for a moment







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As Far As The Eye Can See

sort of








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Section of Spires










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Sad (and Confusing)

There's a certain sadness about the whole place, but this kind of
monument, of a history written in stone discarded halfway through, seems particularly forlorn. It chronicles deaths starting in 1919 with a 2-year-old girl, and ends in 83 years later 2002 with (I think)
her sister-in-law (of sorts).

I'm probably totally misunderstand what I
think I'm seeing, but it looks like the last entry in 2002 is for
the 84-year-old third wife of the 2nd-to-last entry, a
man who died at 82 in 1987. The entry
prior to that is 42 years earlier, in 1945, of the man's oldest son who
died at the age of 2, a month after the man's
second wife had died at age 30. His first wife died at 23,
thirteen years earlier in 1932. The first and
second wives were sisters. The first two entries
(1919 and 1929) were additional sisters who passed at 2 and 19. A fifth sister clearly exists, born between 1916-1918
(and so about the same age as the third wife), but doesn't seem to be
referenced anywhere. Anyway, I'm guessing that
the third wife had prepaid for her data to be entered, but no one paid the
annual maintenance fees after that, so eventually the stone was removed to
this area.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/16, ISO 6400 —
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Also Sad

two miscarriages, but the blanks are not filled in on the dates (which is odd)







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Indistinguishable From a Rock

some were worn down a lot









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Different Neighborhoods







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Our Security Guard

from the first photo

An Autumn Visit to the Sento Imperial Palace in Kyoto

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 250 —
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Palatial Path

a path at a palace, the Sento Imperial Palace in Kyoto Japan

Nov 2013

仙洞御所（京都市）去年の秋
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Continuing the story about a day with friends in Kyoto last November that started with a morning visit
to the Shugakuin Imperial Villa, after
lunch we made our way to the Sento Imperial Palace,
a small palace tucked away in a corner of the huge park that also houses the main Imperial Palace in Kyoto.

It was my first trip to this particular palace.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Plain Entrance

to the grounds of the Sento Imperial Palace (仙洞御所)








Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/9, ISO 100 —
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Staging Area

just inside the entrance

I include this photo mostly as an example of why one needs to be careful
about using a polarizing
filter with a wide-angle lens. I'd brought the filter along because
it has
such a dramatic impact on fall foliage,
but here it's having an impact on parts of the sky. But the sky is at best polarized only in
certain directions, and the wide-angle lens is covering both polarized and unpolarized parts
of the sky, so the effect is an area of deeper blue with washed-out areas on either side. Ugh.

When the tour started, its first stop was the big building in the
background, which is one wing of the actual palace. While the guide talked
about the building, I shot the garden to the right...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/9, ISO 2800 —
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Looks Okay








Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/100 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Off We Go

These palace tours run at a brisk pace and they don't like stragglers, so if you wnat photos, you have to grab them
when you can. Adjusting camera settings and composition while walking, three seconds after the shot above I got
something that I like a bit more...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Through the door in the wall seen in the two photos above, we came into an open area on the other side of the same
building we'd started at. More talk. From the outside it was unremarkable by Kyoto standards...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/100 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Unremarkable

small part of a huge wooden structure rebuilt 150 years ago

We then moved on to the main attraction open to the public, the gardens. A short path brought us to this lake vista:

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/4.5, ISO 250 —
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First Look at the Lake

The presence of this lake absolutely floored me.

As I noted earlier, this entire palace and garden is tucked into a corner of the huge central-Kyoto park
known as the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park, named so not for the subject of today's post, but because it also houses
the main imperial palace in Kyoto. The park is huge and I've written posts from it on many occasions
(including cherry blossoms,
plum blossoms,
festivals,
family outings, and
fall colors), but I never knew this second palace and its garden
was here. I've ridden right by on a bicycle a hundred times in the last decade, but I had no clue. I was floored.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Path Leads Around the Lake








Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Sun Came Out for a Moment








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Too. Much. Color.








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A Bit Washed Out The Other Way

but I love the character of the bare tree at right








Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Ken-chan

I took a bunch of photos of my masseur friend Kentaro Kataoka during these palace visits because it was his first time for both palaces, and
it's difficult for a Japanese to visit. Someone with a foreign passport can
stop in on the day and likely get a spot, but a Japanese must make a
reservation months in advance for tours that fill up very quickly. But a group
of up to three foreigners can bring one Japanese national along with them (ostensibly as a translator),
so this opportunity allowed him to take the tour.

We eventually come to a small bridge over a narrow pinch in the lake...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/14, ISO 1400 —
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Not Too Bad








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Heading Across








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The Rest of the Lake

Just as I crossed the bridge, the sun dipped behind a cloud, but still,
the mossy area on the other side was unearthly in its beauty (much more so
than I have the skill to capture in a photo)...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/14, ISO 5600 —
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Unbelievably Scrumptious

I was marveling dumbstruck at this amazing beauty when nature laughed and said “you ain't seen nuthin' yet”,
and moved the cloud:

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Singing Angels

would stop in their tracks at this view
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It was perhaps the most beautiful scene of nature that I've ever witnessed firsthand.

Because I'm so passionate about photography, every bit of me wanted to
capture that beauty in a photo, but I knew it was impossible. I don't have
the skill. The multitude of folks with 10× my skill, put together,
wouldn't have enough skill to capture this scene, especially with the
pressure that a policeman tour-guide was likely to come along any second to
yell at you for dawdling, forever putting and end to your attempts.

(I do have to say that the police/guides here were much nicer than at
the other palaces I've been to in Kyoto, the aforementioned Shugakuin palace, and the
Katsura Palace, which I realize now that I've yet to post about. Anyway, on
today's trip they were much more forgiving of slow photographers, so I
appreciated every extra second in this mossy colorful dream.)

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/4, ISO 500 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Lazy Hillside
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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Inviting

as a bed for a nap
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To be continued...

Filling the Time Between Imperial Villas

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 125 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Entrance Path

to the Saginomori Shrine (鷺森神社), Kyoto Japan

Continuing the story of my last post, “Revisiting Kyoto’s Fall Colors: Shugakuin Imperial Villa Last November”, on a day with friends last November in Kyoto, Japan filled with photographic delights, the story had ended
with our finishing
a visit to the Shugakuin Imperial Villa. We had some time before lunch, so
we paid a quick visit to the Saginomori Shrine (鷺森神社).

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 180 —
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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 220 —
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Wishes

A small wall has “wish plaques”, where people write their wishes. Presumably, the shrine will burn them
later in a ceremony (like this small ceremony,
or this very large one).

People often wish
for happiness or for health, but
the girl who wrote the one whose text was visible to me had more specific
ideas:

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 320 —
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Nothing Too Special

the one in the upper right ask only “to hit it big in the lottery”

For lunch, we treated ourselves to French, at La Verveine for a $20 meal that in France
would cost, we were told (by a Frenchman) 5× the price.

This appetizer was much better than my quick photo of it would indicate.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Getting Started

at La Verveine

I couldn't do the photography justice, so I put the camera away until the after-dinner coffee.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1400 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Kataoka-Sensei

and his cute little cup

With the visit to the Imperial Villa and such a fantastic lunch, we'd had a great day so far, but the best still awaited...

To be continued...

Revisiting Kyoto’s Fall Colors: Shugakuin Imperial Villa Last November (Part 2)

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/4.5, ISO 280 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Simple Footbridge

At the Shugakuin Imperial Villa in Kyoto Japan, last November

去年の秋の修学院離宮
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I guess this is a continuation of a post three months ago looking back
to last November's trip to
the Shugakuin Imperial Villa in Kyoto. We're still two months away from
fall foliage season in Kyoto, but it's just around the corner for much of
the Northern Hemisphere, so I guess this is a
getting-in-the-mood-for-Autumn kind of post.

We'd left of on that previous post having headed up a hill to a nice view. The same view with an 85mm at f/1.6 sort of has a slightly-unreal look, as if it's a close up of a model...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/3200 sec, f/1.6, ISO 100 —
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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/8000 sec, f/1.6, ISO 100 —
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Photo Ops for All








Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/500 sec, f/1.6, ISO 100 —
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As described in my first post about this location, the tour moves at a brisk pace and
they don't like folks to stray ahead or behind. So it's difficult to get most shots without luck and planning. Here's one such shot:

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
map & image data — nearby photos
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The only way to get that shot is to be the first one down the hill after they tell you to get moving, or the last one. I was the first...
folks came streaming down moments later...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/2.5, ISO 125 —
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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/160 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 —
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Ken-chan

I'd made the trip with Damien, Paul, and Kentaro Kataoka (my masseur friend, most recently
mentioned on my blog here).

(Coincidentally, I had dinner with Ken-chan and Damien last night at
Via Transito, an Italian restaurant run
by a friend. Was Tasty. When Paul comes in again November, the four of us will have to do it again
and document the meal with photos .

Anyway, the lake doesn't look so great in the shot above, so here's a shot of the same covered bridge, but from
the other direction, and with perhaps better lighting...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400 —
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The next stop on the tour was another little hut/house where the Emperor might have tea or something...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/7.1, ISO 1100 —
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Room for Reflection

Kyuusuitei (窮邃亭) at the Shugakuin Imperial Villa (修学院離宮)








Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 125 —
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Typical Scene

while moving on the tour








Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 —
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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO 4500 —
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Ken Again








Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO 1400 —
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Lake and that Tea House








Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 —
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Heading Back

the red had is unmistakable








Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 250 —
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Exit
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Our tour of this imperial villa was done, but another awaited, as did lunch.

To be continued...

My Best (and Last) Score in the 2048 Game: 76,936

My Most Recent (and Final) Score

in the game called “2048”

This won't mean a thing if you don't know this game, but if you do, I hope your jaw is suitably on the floor at that score.

When I still had the
cold that I recently got over, I would sometimes pass the time playing the simple game
“2048”. I played on my phone, but anyone can play for free at
the creator's website.
It's fun and addictive.

During this sick time a game would last a few minutes, and I could get a
score of about 2,000. Anthony and I had a running competition, and at first
he could do better than me. But as my cold subsided, I got better, and with
luck, could get a score of 5,000 and once even 7,000.

Then a few days ago I got one hint of strategy online, and boom, my
scores started going up. This hint got me paying attention to the gameplay
in a different way, and from there I came up with some important rules of
thumb that really caused my scores to explode. 12,000 then 29,700, then 33,000.

Unfortunately, the games started lasting longer and longer, and when I'm
not sick I just don't have the time to waste on games. If I could limit
myself to filling lost time (like in the bathroom or while stretching at
the gym) I do it, but I don't have that kind of willpower, because it's quite fun.

Today's last game was sweet. Things were just humming along perfectly like a machine. Here's a screenshot I took
at one really nice moment... this means nothing if you don't know the game, but if you do, you can imagine what
the next few moves will yield...

Moments Before My First “4096” Tile




Typical Scene Later On

nice and orderly

Things started to unravel when I allowed myself to get into a situation where I had no choice but to move down,
along the lines of this mockup I made in Photoshop:

Bad Situation

( mockup made in Photoshop )

So I had to move down, and of course a “2” tile pops up right where the “4096” tile was, and that started things falling apart.

By the way, if you're a programmer, this
long thread at Stack Overflow, on computer algorithms to play the game, is fun reading.
One guy's program could score 377,792(!)

Celebrating the End of My Cold With Some Pretty Photos From 2008

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 at an effective 202mm — 1/1000 sec, f/4, ISO 200 —
map & image data — nearby photos

A Metaphor For Me

a dead sunflower and pretty flowers,

representing the cold I just got over, and the getting over of the cold

I'm finally over the nagging cold I had for the last two weeks. It had relented a bit early on enough
for me to write the posts on the gargoyle workshop,
then returned and stuck with me until I finally went to the doctor the other day. He gave me antibiotics, and I started feeling much felt better the next day.

やっと風邪が治った、二週間ぶり元気です。手当たり次第に２００８年の写真色々を見せます。

I couldn't concentrate on much while I had the cold, but to try to eek
out some productivity, I picked a year (2008) and started going through my
photo archive with and eye to delete cruft — stuff I no longer need,
or never needed but had been too lazy to go through and get rid of. I got through about 90% of the 14,299 photos that I still have for the year,
and identified a third as low-hanging-fruit that I can delete.

Wanting to post something now that I'm finally feeling better, here are
a few pretty-ish shots from 2008. They're all taken with a Nikon D200,
which was my first
dSLR.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 at an effective 25mm — 1/400 sec, f/5, ISO 400 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Garden Lake

Heian Shrine, Kyoto Japan

平安神宮

From the same trip that produced “Snowy Gardens of the Heian Shrine”.

And a tree in the local park, during cherry-blossom peak:

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 at an effective 240mm — 1/180 sec, f/4, ISO 500 —
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Weeping Cherry at Full Bloom

From the same day as Cherry-Blossom “Snow”.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 at an effective 300mm — 1/500 sec, f/3.5, ISO 640 —
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Kids Playing

I don't know who the kids are, but I like the feeling of action the shot captures. From this day.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 at an effective 127mm — 1/3000 sec, f/2.2, ISO 160 —
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A Pretty Sunset is a Pretty Sunset

from the day that started here








Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR at an effective 27mm — 1/160 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400 —
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Wisteria Vertigo

from this outing

Nothing super great, and without the story that I normally like to write, but sometimes you just want to see colors.

Though here's a little story: after selecting the photos for today's
post, and while starting to write it up, I went back to my archive see what
other blog posts I'd written from the same outings these photos came from. It turns out that I'd already published a photo very similar to the one
that leads this post, with the same metaphor of the dead flower representing my having a cold. Six and a half
years ago, it was the lead photo on “Venting About My
(sort of) Cursed Vacation”.

If nothing else, I'm consistent.