A Side Temple

All the photos I posted from my trip to Nikko the other day were of flowers.... so here's one of a little side temple that I had never visited before - maybe it's not usually open.

Fireworks on TV

The Sumidgawa Fireworks were shown live on TV Tokyo tonight, and here's a photo of one of the entries in the competition.

Lilies

Some of the superb lilies that were growing in a garden in Nikko. There are quite a few around. It's a yamayuri, or mountain lily.

In Search of Zen

I went up to Nikko to find a suitable subject for a Zen photo. I'm not sure if I came away with anything simple enough for the dpc CHallenge.

I did get some flower and insect shots as well.

Back to the bloggy

Being on summer holidays, one just getrs lazy about blogging.
Here are a couple of shots from last Saturday, the festival in Moka. I considered entering the girl on the portable shrine into the Gold challenge, but as I had already made a special detour on my trip to Tokyo, I decided to keep that one in (doing not very well...).
The main reason I went to the Moka Festival was to take photos of the fireworks. 20,000 of them in a show of 90 minutes or so. (It included a laser display which I couldn't see very well). At last I was able to try out the focussing technique, which I had read baout last year.

Bamboo Firefly

Hmm, been too busy to take photos until today - unofficially, the start of my summer vacation. So I went into Tokyo for some shopping. The train took about an hour longer than usual because the recent rains have affected the track in some places, so it means Go Slow.

Anyway, this bamboo firefly was in a window display in Asakusa.

Lantern-lined Street

I went down to Oyama yesterday and it rained heavily in the evening, apparently. Fortunately, when I was riding the bike back from the station it wasn't raining. I stopped and took this street scene, thinking it would fit the Lines challenge, but I don't think it would go over so well with the voters - certainly not compared to what the big guns will produce.

Not the Luxury Today

I thought I was only going have to teach only two lessons today, but my offsider Yui was away sick so I had to take her two classes as well. I had been hoping to do a whole lot of photo editing, which is why I took my computer in to school. In the end, I only got three done, including this bee. Through the viewfinder, I saw it create that droplet.

Ridiculous and Sublime

One of the sixth grade classes has a travel agency's calendar in the wall. The May picture was of Disneyworld in Florida with Mickey Mouse climbing the fake mountain (Matterhorn?). I thought it was very amusing. The June photo was of Mt Kilimanjaro, and they had cut out Mickey and stuck him in the picture. Very amusing. Last week I noticed that they hadn't changed it over to July yet, but today, there he was, floating over some part of Hawai.i. So I went and got my camera from the air-conditioned staff room and took a photo of it - but, as expected, the lens fogged up because of the change of temperature - hot and muggy classroom.

And then sunset just after 7pm. This is after a rainy day of hot and muggy weather - and FOG. It seems strange to have fog in summer, but there it is. It was especially evident in the morning in the town where I work.

Busy Bumblebee

I've been as busy as this little big guy, so photographing and posting every day is not really possible. I took him on Thursday. The deputy principle at one of my schools is a very keen gardener, so the entrance is always festooned with flowers.

Them Eyes

One of the dragonfly photos I took yesterday - a 100% crop; that is, no resizing, just cropped off edges to make the long side near 640pixels. I still haven't had time to do any deep and meaningful editing.

Having seen some of the entries in the Stationary challenge, maybe I shouldn't have entered this or similar....

Somewhat Stunned Dragon

I went out with my camera at recess time to take some photos of the red flower - hibiscus? - and some kids put this dragonfly on it; it was rather docile after having been handled. Later I got some really good macro shots of an un-kidhandled dragonfly - will post later here and/or on dpc.

JPG Frog

An outtake for the special Straight from the Camera challenge, a local frog which I put on top of oneof the cars. In the end, I didn't use a frog picture for the challenge...

Poppy

I was reading one of the dpc threads about contrast masking, so I experimented with this photo, which is recent. Well, levels masking. The background was blurry green, but I made it much darker.

The kids at school went to a concert this morning, so I managed to get there at noon (for lunch, because it only costs 210 yen, and the afternoon lesson). So before that I went ot the city library. I would never have thought that the library would be so busy on a Friday morning - though it's be logical as the other branch is closed on Fridays.

Flower Ant

Trying out various flowers for the Flower challenge. It's not this one. I've got three or four to choose between - and of course, it's a difficult choice.

The ant was busy and and was moving about quickly.

Maybe This one

Would have been better for Glass, but then the busy background might have counted against.

Well, I've been too busy/tired to do any photo editing lately. I took some flower shots today - I've got Friday morning off, so I should be able to do some editing then.

A Couple of Insects

When I arrived at school, I saw this moth on the gate. It's abdomen was arched back; unfortunately I only got three shots in before I accidentally knocked the gate and it flew off.

At the end of school, some kids saw this damselfly - "itotombo" - in the window of the staffroom, between the curtain and the glass. It was caught with a net and one of the boys held it for me to photograph. They're usually very difficult to get close to in wild, so I'm sorry I didn't get better shots of it.

40000

Well, I've had my car for a few days and it's already gone 40,000 km. Well, that's after me driving it about 120km. And I've been too busy to really concentrate on anything to do with taking photos, so here's a memento of when the car reached this kilometrestone.

A Bit of History (insignificant as it may be)

Yesterday, my father sent a photo of my nephew with a soccer award. The photo was almost 2Mb, so I said you should make the file size smaller for emails. I also mentioned that I had seen a book in the bookstore about railways in Nikko.

So, today, he sent some photos that are too small, including this one of the cable car from that went up to Lake Chuzenji from Nikko. He rode it in 1949. The railway was closed for good in 1969 after the Iroha Road was completed.

I got my own car yesterday, as well, then I had to take the company car to a Honda garage (though it's a Nissan); and walked most of the way back home until I could get a bus - 6 kilometres, I guess. So now I have a Toyota Vitz Clavia. It's only the second car I've ever bought myself.

30 second gems

I tried some 30 second exposures using marbles and glass beads. Not terribly interesting, really. In the evening, I thought I might try go see if I could find fireflies ... but it's too early in the season for them, apparently.