Old Photos

I had a rare office day today. They've moved to a different building since last I was there. It's brighter but quieter. I spent the day going through some photo folders on one of my portable HDDs, looking for stock-type photos to edit.

These photos I took about a year ago when I was asked to observe a first grade Japanese lesson. I posted another one of the boy who is squinting on my PAD last year, but I thought I'd do this one as a B&W. The boy with the book on his head .... teehee. Of course, they're in second grade now, and it won't be long before they move into third grade.

I accidentally erased the originals from the HDD....(

Off-centre Ball

An outtake from the Off-Centre Challenge. The ball is as I found it, sitting on the net. I liked the definite shadows. It was very windy and cold that day.

Pug's Smugmug : The Purple Ant

I finally created some galleries for my Colour Project on my SmugMug page. I included this one of a purple ant on a yellow flower. It's in the Yellow Gallery, though. I took it in September last year for the Complementary Colours challenge but didn't submit it...

Link here:

• The COLOUR Project
  

Colour Project: BLUE

I took some Blue challenge shots today. I doubt any one of them would do exceptionally well. Here's one from Jan 17 ... a blue net for soap.

Off-centre Skipper

Another pic from the other day, trying for off centre. However, it probably wouldn't do so well in the challenge because ot the cut-off shadow, foot too close to the bottom, and other reasons. She's a new girl at the school and was jumping with two ropes.

I saw a fox this morning as I was driving to school - well, the tail mainly as it went over an embankment into the little forest. I never expected to see one in such an area.

It's a dog of a year

One of the photos I took yesterday at a temple in Ujiie. As it's the Chinese zodiacal year of the dog, they had this big painting on the temple verandah. It seems unfinished, but it looks good the way it is. I'm not a dog person at all; I'm definitely one for the cats.

I didn't take any photos today but had a little snowball figt with some third grade kids - lots of snow remains from Monday because today's school is in the shadow of a mountain forest for most of the day.

Wednesday night again

No time for downloading pictures I took to day. I took my new guitar to school today and played it for the first graders.

Evidence of yesterday's snow - and patterns made by somone. Cool.

Snowy Road

Same part of the road as Jan 16, but with snow.

Colour Project: BLUE

A photo from my expedition the other day. A graveyard behind a temple - and an upside down rice bowl on a plank. Rice bowls are left there to feed the departed souls.

Mice will play

Boardgame day today in Oyama, where it was snowing more heavily than here (the train was held up for a 15 or 20 minutes at the station before Oyama). These are playing pieces from one of the games, Mouse Rally. It's quite fun - what might be called a dexterity gamme. It doesn't fit in with the Colour project because no colour is the featured colour.

Colour Project: RED

Today after school I went to an out-of-the-way temple to take challenge photos. Here's one for the colour project, of little jizo statues wearing their red bibs and caps.

Danger in the Mountains!

I had another early mark from school, so I decided to go up Takahara-san's flanks for photos ... maybe Wildlife or a Tribute shot in the making. This one is of a kamakura snow dome at the People's Forest Information Centre. You may not be able to see him too well because he's camouflaged, but there's a guy there carrying a camera on a tripod. He had been taking photos of some robins in a tree.

From the Centre, I went further up the mountain past the snow line: fortunately the road was ploughed of snow. I reached a point where I decided to turn back, so I turned my car around and parked it to take some photos of the trees in the snow. When I got back in the car, it wouldn't start! Too cold, I guess.

Luckily, it was facing downhill, so I rolled it and it wasn't long before I got the engine running again. When I stopped one more time to take photos, I kept the engine ticking over.

Colour Project: YELLOW

An early mark today, so there's time to do some editing (and surfing).
This is a fish in one of the tanks in the school entrance hall. It's the same tank as the skunk shrimp which I've taken pictures of before. There used to be a very shy blue fish in the same tank but I didn't see it today.

Colours: GREEN

I had an idea to create galleries of photos with one major colour element. Originally, I thought it would be a PAD for a month in a single colour, then change colour. But I guess it would be easier to set up the separate galleries and post photos as I do them. So, today I took Red, Blue, Green and Yellow photos.

The burning question is, will I get around to creating the galleries at http://pug8.smugmug.com/ seeing that I haven't posted anything there since DEC 5? (lazy sod)

Some remnants of green tea.

Going down the road

I tried some shots for the Signs and Roads challenges - here's an outtake from the Road. I think I'll enter the Signs challenge, if I enter either. Maybe a bit oversaturated. I only took one lens - and my car was at the bottom of the hill.

There are four torii and several little shrines. I kind of like how the background is overexposed so that it looks like mist.

Nothing

Stayed home all day ..... housework, washing, cooking, cleaning, that sort of thing. A bit of websurfing. I considered getting the camera out but didn't get round to it. So here's anotehr outtake from the Shapes challenge. I wonder if either of these two would have done better than my final entry.

Finding Parts Unknown in Your Soup

hehe, I haven't touched my camera in a couple of days, but have been thinking about photography a lot. There's a picture I want to take for the Free Study, but it necessitates things I don't have available. So I'll have to think of something else...
Today I bought a Yamaha guitar. I'm no great guitarist by a long, long shot but I'll be able to use it in classes. However, my fingers are so soft from not playing for such a long time, it hurts if I play too long.
We had some decent rain today. Winter is pretty dry and humidity is very low here.
Well, here's an outtake from the Shapes challenge.

Ice wheel

Actually taken yesterday, this is the waterwheel near the school I was at today. The water gradually turned to ice as the wheel moved, resulting in icicles going in different directions. However, the wheel is frozen stuck now, and the ice doesn't all melt away during the day.

No time for photo editing

I took some photos today. A koala-shaped macadamia chocolate. Some of the school kids (practising for the Singled Out challenge). And a frozen waterwheel. But I have no time tonight for editing any of them. That's the problem with having an evening class to teach as well, on a Wednesday.