Amami Superman Photography

Taking Control Again

2012-02-13T14:40:00.002+09:00

Do you ever feel like your life isn't in your control? I've been feeling that way for quite some time now. At the beginning of this year, I decided to make some changes. It's not quite a New Year's resolution, as the thought has been in my mind for a while. It just happened I got the gumpf to do something about it then.

I need to take more time to spend with the family during the week and on the weekends. Not so much just being with them, but going out and doing things together. I feel our family activities have slowly dwindled to nonexistence over the past year or so. Sure we get out every once in a while, but not like before.

I also need to get in control of my health. I think I fall in the severely obese category now. It's weird to think that just 8 years ago I used to play basketball 3 times a week and compete in off-road bike races around southern Japan. I used to pride myself with how strong and in shape I was. Now I'm just a fat tub of lard that has a hard time putting on his socks. I think in the past 8 years I put on over 50kg (over 110 lbs). No more.

I'm going to take some time to get back and do something fun and interesting for myself. I haven't taken very many photos over the past 3 or 4 months. Maybe a handful of times. I want to change that too. I'm going to make some time for me.

I decided to stop teaching some of my evening classes I teach during the week. I mean to stop teaching all evening classes eventually. Last month I started to coach my daughter's mini basketball team. I've posted a few posts about that in the past. I decided to do this for a few reasons: 1. Running drills with the kids gives my fat butt a chance to do some exercise. 2. I get to spend a little time teaching my daughter basketball as well as a whole team. Sure coaching basketball takes up some time, but it's something I like and want to do.

Last month I started to watch what I eat, literally. I started counting calories and what I was actually eating in my meals - lots and lots of fat. My wife bought a healthy recipe book and has been making some very delicious meals from that. I've made some nutrition goals for a daily calorie intake. It's not that difficult once you figure out what kinds of foods have loads of fat in them. I read somewhere a quote that goes quite well with how I feel, "I'm not on a diet, I'm eating healthy." There's another quote I saw that I also like, "I'm not losing weight, I'm getting rid of it! And I don't want it back!" So I'm eating healthier and drinking lots of water.

With these changes I also want to get back to taking photos again. This last weekend I grabbed the camera bag, dusted off the tripod and loaded the family into the car to go take some sakura photos. We didn't have that much time as we had basketball practice in the afternoon, but I was able to take a few OK shots.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 24mm, 1/250 sec, f/4.2, ISO 100 -- EXIF

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 48mm, 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 22mm, 1/160 sec, f/6.3, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Am I Making a Funny Face?

So I'm going to make more time to take more photos and also make some more time to go through them and post to this blog. I'm sorry for not posting in so many months.

Metaroka Summerfest 2011

2011-08-07T20:32:00.004+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Metaroka

Metaroka is a tribute band to Metallica. I suppose you say the pronunciation is meta-rocker, but it sounds close to Metallica in Japanese, sorta...

Every year they hold Summerfest at Ohama Beach here in Amami. My friend Daiju (Mr. D), plays guitar for Metaroka. Daiju owns a cafe called Clo-bar. His cafe is a nice little place with some pretty tasty dishes. Anyway, I came out to cheer on some of out local bands here in Amami.

Summerfest lasts for 2 days and usually has over 50 bands that come out to play. It's pretty fun to come and watch if you're up to sitting out in the sun most of the afternoon, which is pretty hot and tiresome. Metaroka started their stage just a little after 4:00pm so there was some shade from the palms to hide under.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Mr. D
(Daiju)

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Naru
(bass)

Daiju and Naru are in another band called Gas Coin. Gas Coin is a punk rock band and are pretty popular here in Amami. I've been to a few of their stages and I get a laugh from their main vocal.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Taro

Taro is a very talented guitarist. I took some photos of him a few years ago playing acoustic guitar at an anniversary party at Susumocho.

They played 2 or 3 songs from Metallica. I forget which ones they played but one I do remember one was Enter the Sandman, very awesome. I got chills.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/500 sec, f/8, ISO 100 -- EXIF
"Enter night!"

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/400 sec, f/8, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Posing for the Applause

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/80 sec, f/8, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Daigo

Daigo is another good friend of mine. He runs the surf shop with my wife's older brother. I took photos of his yoinou a few years back. Daigo is also a very talented musician. He can play drums as well as guitar and a few other instruments.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/400 sec, f/8, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Mr. D Solo

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 1/200 sec, f/8, ISO 100 -- EXIF

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 20mm, 1/160 sec, f/8, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Power Stance Perfection

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/250 sec, f/8, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Style

Only Daiju can pull off being a hardcore rocker and wear flip-flops.

So those are a few photos I took from Summerfest this year. It was hot and I was pretty tired from work so I didn't stay to see everyone. We let our daughter swim for a while and then headed for home.

Work has been pretty busy for me. We were supposed to have Amami Festival happen this weekend but we had a typhoon come near us and they rescheduled it for later this month. They did have the hachigatsu odori yesterday and the parade today, but it was rainy and I didn't chance taking my camera out. We still have a few festivals scheduled around the island so hopefully it will be good weather and I'll be able to get some photos of those.

A Little Flashy

2011-07-08T07:00:00.001+09:00

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Glamour Shots by Deb are 75% Off

So after our daughter got her hair cut and we went to pick her up, we were walking home and I decided to take some photos of her on the way. The previous post's photos are some of those photos. This is another that wasn't that great on its own but with a few post editing graduated ND filters and a nice crop, I thought it turned out OK. Oh, and I used my flash, hence the title of this blog post.

I dialed down my on-board camera's flash compensation to -3.0 and shot. I don't like harsh contrasting shadows from flashes so I don't use my on-board flash that often. Eventually I would like to buy a flash and start experimenting with it. Learning how to diffuse the light from a flash is something I'd like to learn and it's high up on my list of things I'd like to study. I just have to buy a flash. But before I buy a flash, I would like to buy a new camera body. I've been saying this for over a year now, but I really do think I need to buy a new one. It's just not high up on my Things I Want to Spend My Money on list, but eventually I will. I still got my eye on a Nikon D300s.

Oh, and the title for the photo, "Glamour Shots by Deb are 75% Off", is from the movie Napoleon Dynamite if you were wondering what that was all about.

Took Her to the Chop Shop

2011-07-07T08:30:00.003+09:00

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/80 sec, f/1.8, ISO 400 -- EXIF
That's Short!

My wife and daughter decided between themselves that yesterday would be a good day to go get our daughter's hair cut. I like long hair for the most part and liked the way Jade looks in a pony tail, especially when she's playing basketball. But, it's the summer time and I guess long hair makes things quite hot. So they decided to get it chopped off short. Her hair used to fall down to around her waist. Now she can't even tie it back if she wanted to.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/125 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Not Bad
I guess...

When I went to pick Jade up from the beauty salon, this little boy come running up to me ready to throw his arms around me. "Who's this little boy?!" I shouted. Jade stopped in her tracks and almost started to cry. I quickly pulled her in and gave her big hug and told her how beautiful she looked.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/160 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 -- EXIF
She Looks Older

I have to admit that it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I actually like it, although, it makes her look a bit older. I wish I could stop time. I don't want her to grow up so fast and she's just racing through the years it seems. She's 10 already! Holy cow. It just seems like yesterday I was gagging and dry heaving trying to changer her diapers.

More Roadside Flowers

2011-06-27T18:34:00.002+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/80 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Nice Light Purple

Holy jeeze! As I started to make this post, I was wondering if I hadn't taken photos of these kinds of flowers before and went back to check older posts. As I got into searching, I went back and started looking at all my older posts as I sometimes do. I realized that I've been taking photos for over 2 1/2 years now. That's not the holy jeeze part I'm talking about. The holy jeeze part is I've really fallen off my game in the last 8 months. I'll admit that work has been busy and I haven't made posts as much as I would like to, but I looked at some of the photos I haven't posted and they really aren't that great. And the photos I have posted don't really compare to the photos I took a year ago. I feel I don't have a strong talent for taking photos, but for what I do have, how does the saying go? "Use it or lose it" I need to get out there more! So I guess you could say that I'm a bit ashamed of myself personally as I know I can take better photos.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Out Stretched

Anyway! I'll stop the rant there. Although I haven't been taking photos as much as I used to, I still learn a bunch from the photos I do take, like fluorescent light and sports shots. But, with summer setting in, I know I'll have plenty of opportunities to get out there and start honing my skills again.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 -- EXIF
I Like This One

It was a cloudy day and the sun breaks were frequent. I upped my ISO after it got cloudier and was able to take this photo. The colors seem pretty close to what I saw and that's what I like about it. I think it turned out pretty nice.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Reaching Out

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 -- EXIF
A Buzz in the Air

As I was taking these photos, I could hear the buzz of a bee flying around me. I found it and decided to take some photos of it as it lit from one flower to the next and try to catch it in flight. At first, I couldn't get any decent photos. I would auto-focus on it, but as it flew away, it would be out of focus when I snapped the shot. So I switched to manual focus and tried my luck. I took around 15 photos like this one, but this was the closest I came to a nice shot. This photo was cropped almost to a 1:1 ratio.

So there are some pretty pink flowers. I don't have a clue what they are and I'm hoping that a botanist viewer, Peter from Whales, will be kind enough to enlighten me if he knows what they are. Cheers

Hydrangea!

2011-06-23T18:32:00.004+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 34mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.0, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Astonishingly Vibrant

Believe it or not, I didn't do anything to change the vibrancy nor saturation in the above photo. I was surprised when I first saw it. Usually the photos I shoot don't look as colorful and vibrant as I see when I shoot. I did, however, up the contrast a bit and lowered the clarity to max for this photo.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5,6 @ 55mm, 1/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Can I Have My Photo Taken Too?

For this photo I upped the exposure a bunch, not sure how much, +1.65 in Lightroom. I added some recovery and blacks, gave it some clarity and also upped the vibrancy a bit and lowered the saturation a tad.

These two photos look pretty different and I notice that when they are on the same page, the second photo makes the first one look weird. But when I'm looking at them separately, the first one looks really nice to me. Especially when I leave my computer for a while and come back and it's the first photo I see. I like it. But something about the second photo makes it look weird when they're on the same page.

I posted some photos of hydrangea a few posts early and I didn't know what they were. Peter from Whales was kind enough to leave a comment and tell me what they were. So, thanks Peter. :)

And at least this time I remembered to give this post a title...

Oops!

2011-06-22T22:09:00.007+09:00

Panoramic View of Somewhere in Uken
EXIF

Click here for enlarged photo.
**WARNING**
This enlarged photo is larger than my regular enlarged photos. It may take some time to appear depending on your internet connection.

I went out to teach in Uken at a nursery school today. My wife likes kids just as much as I do and she tagged along with me. On the way home we stopped at several different spots to pick flowers and take photos. This isn't the first stop, but I thought I would start off with these photos to give you an idea of the kind of day it was.

As you can see in the above panoramic photo that it was a pretty cloudy day but it did have its breaks and the sun shown through bright during our many stops.

The above photo was created in Photoshop using the Merge to Panorama option from 3 photos. This is about the angle of view you would have, with a little more vertical width, looking from the side of the road where I was shooting from. It was a very contrasting shot. The sun was shining down on us, but wasn't shining anywhere else besides the foreground. I did a bit of post editing to this panorama because it didn't have the same contrasty feel that I saw when I was shooting it. I feel this is pretty close to what I saw.

Also, the name of the photo is "Somewhere", because I forgot to recharge the batteries for my hand-held GPS and couldn't get the exact coordinates. I tried to look it up on Google Earth, but just couldn't find the spot. I try to geo-encode my photos for the ones that are points-of-interest if you're ever inclined to come to my island. :)

Photoshop did a great job merging these photos. After merging these photos, I upped the Recovery along with the Fill Light a bit and maxed out the Clarity in Lightroom. I also upped the Vibrancy a bit and lowered the Saturation a smigde. After doing this, I felt the clouds didn't have the clarity I saw so I used the Graduated Filter tool and upped the Clarity of the clouds a bit more. This is what I turned out with and I thought it was pretty close to what I saw.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/200 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 -- EXIF
She Just Wants to Pick Flowers

As I was all enthralled at the view at hand, my wife was more interested in the flowers at the side of the road.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/400 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 -- EXIF
OK, Let's See Your Flowers...

I don't know what these flowers are called, but as it turns out, I hear they are poisonous. She didn't know this at the time, but when we got home, my wife's mother told her that they were and that people try to get rid of these flowers as much as possible. I don't think they are poisonous to the touch, as my wife didn't have any reaction to picking them. I imagine, if they are poisonous, that they need to be digested to have any affect.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Untouched

This photo is straight out of the camera and I haven't done any post editing to it. It's not a good photo but I thought I would throw it in to give you an idea of what I was shooting. This tree's blossoms were kind of high up and my 18-55mm lens just didn't get close enough so I used my 55-200mm lens to get these next shots.

I don't know what kind of tree this is, but it's in full bloom right now. If you look at the panoramic photo I took, you can see some of these blossoms in the lower left hand corner. I mentioned this before in previous posts, but until I started taking photos, I never noticed the different flowers and blossoms that bloomed around the island during different times of the year until I started to take photos. It seems that where ever I go, I'm always noticing new things that I never would have if I had never taken up photography.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 102mm, 1/250 sec, f/4.8, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Hard Contrast, Soft Glow

As the name of the photo says, I maxed the Contrast to give it this contrasty feel and tabbed down the Clarity to give it a softer feel. It's not a great photo, but I feel it turned out nice. Whether or not you like this kind of photo, I have been more inclined to make photos with more contrast, and it appeals to me. This next photo was posted edited with similar settings.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 200mm, 1/80 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF

So those are some of the photos I took on my way home from teaching today. I have a bunch of more photos to share and I'll make posts for those soon.

It's now 11:30pm as I write this and it's a bit late for me. I have to wake up early for work and this usually is the problem I face. I take photos quite regularly, but I just can't find the time to go though them, pick out the photos I like, and make a blog post for them. It's kind of time consuming and I just can't seem to find the time to do it. It's something that I love to do, but the demands on life are a bit difficult. On the other hand, how does that that saying go...

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Post Edit: LOL, I was so tired last night, that I forgot to give this post a title before posing it. That's why the title is "Oops!"

So That's Why I Suck?

2011-06-21T12:37:00.008+09:00

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Jade's First Basketball Game of the School Year

Our daughter, Jade, started basketball last year and has been having a blast. I've going to see most of all her games and I've taken plenty of photos, but I've only posted a handful. The reason for this is, they all sucked. I don't get too angry with myself if I take a bad photo that's not framed well, lacks contrast or is just plain bland photo. I do get angry with myself, however, when I screw up the camera settings when I know better. Every single time I've gone to take photos of Jade playing basketball, the exposure always turned out inconsistent. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. I'd use manual exposure settings and even turn of auto white balance, take several photos from one spot only to have them all come out like I took each photo with different settings. I was pretty discouraged after looking at these photos I took from 2 Sundays ago.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Half Time

Well, I won't go into details, but they got their butts kicked. They have 2 teams at Jade's school, an A team and a B team. The A team is for the 5th and 6th graders and the B team is for the younger classes, kind of like varsity and junior varsity. Although Jade is only in 4th grade, she is on the A team. This is because they don't have enough players in the 5th and 6th grades this year. So this year the A team has a lot of inexperienced players as well as a lack of height.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Second Half Pointers

In these next photos, most of them were taken from the same spot facing the same direction all with the same exact exposure settings. I couldn't figure out why they all seemed to have different lighting. The lights weren't being turned on and off, or were they?

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Rebound

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Going for the Shot!

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
And Fouled!

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Shooting Two

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
1 for 2 at the Line

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
And a Field Goal for 2!

Jade made several shots in this game. I believe she made 50% of the points made for her team. Not that she's a ball hog or anything, lol, she was just in the right spot.

As you can see, the lighting is very inconsistent despite using the same exposure settings for each photo. Some of these photos were even taken using continuous shooting and are less than a second apart. Looking at these photos I noticed this and wondered how one part of the floor is lighter than another when the photos were taken within a second of each other. It then dawned on me that the lights were fluorescent and probably had something to do with cycles.

I then went and searched the interwebz for shooting photos in gyms and found a few articles about this. I found that fluorescent lights change color and even flicker when shooting at faster speeds like the photos I took causing these kinds of inconsistencies. So when I read that, I was all, "OH! So that's why I suck!"

Only a Mother Could Love...

2011-06-16T16:46:00.002+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 200mm, 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Zoomed In

Where to start? Last week our daughter, Jade, was selected to do a type of home-stay program with another school on the island. For one week she got to stay at a student's house and attender their school and classes. It just so happen that one of my wife's schoolmates lived right next to the school our daughter attended. My wife's friend also lived right next door to her uncle.

When my wife went to drop off our daughter at the school, she decided to go visit her friend. As she was walking to her house and passed in front of her friend's uncle's house she noticed a rope hanging down in front of the car port. It made her think, "Why would they have a rope hanging there?" Then she looked down at the end of the rope and saw it resting in muddy area on the ground. My wife gasped as she realized that the rope was tied to an animal laying in the mud. She walked closer and she found that the animal was a small dog. It's hair was matted with mud and who-knows-what so that it looked exactly like the mud it was laying in. It was one pitiful looking animal and her heart went out to it. How could anyone let this little dog reach such a sorry state.

My wife came home and told me the whole story about this little dog and she said she wanted to "save" it. I told her that we already had a dog, but it turned out that she already talked to her friend who in turn was talking to her uncle about the matter. It turned out that they actually kept the dog in the house for the first year or so, but then became tired of the dog and just tied it up outside.

We didn't know what kind of dog it was at first and found out that it was a Shih Tzu. I don't know much about dogs so I didn't know what a Shih Tzu looked like, but I've heard of the name before. We went to pick up our daughter on Friday and I decided to have a look at this dog. It turned out to be just as my wife had told me and how I explained it before. I couldn't believe my eyes.

We went home and the next day I talked it over with my wife and decided to go pick up the dog on Sunday after our daughter's basketball game. I brought a cage with me as I knew how dirty it was and didn't want it sitting on our car seats.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/160 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Holding My Breath

When I got to their house, I found that they tried to give the dog a bath and clean it up a bit. They also tried to give it a haircut and cut away the matted clumps of hair, but couldn't get the scissors to cut them out because the clumps were so thick.

As I walked up close to the dog, I was about 5 or 6 feet away, this dog's smell filled my nostrils and I instantly wanted to vomit. I have a pretty sensitive nose and strong odors don't sit well with me, but I'll tell you this and I'm not exaggerating, it smelled like crap! Even after they gave it a bath. If it's one thing that I just can't stand, it's the smell of crap. I couldn't even change my daughter's diapers when she was a baby.

At first I thought it was just me and my sensitive nose, but my wife's friend came over with some rubber gloves for me to borrow and told me how she thought the dog smelled like crap too despite having a bath. She also told me that they never walked the dog and it basically crapped right were it slept. The matted clumps of hair weren't only caked with mud, but crap as well. This is what made the clumps so hard to cut out because they were so hard. I used the rubber gloves and got the dog into the basket, gagging the whole time. As I moved away from the cage to get some fresh air, I thought to myself, "How am I going to drive home with this in my car?" Have you ever seen the movie Ace Ventura? There's that part in the movie when he's driving his car with a busted windshield and he's got his head stuck out the door window to see, that was me as I drove home.

I got the dog home and now came the nasty of all nasty. I had to clean the dog. There was no way to clean the dog's hair and I decided it best to just shave off all the dog's hair to the skin. It's been a while since I've had to do something so gross. I got out the clippers with an extension cord and a folding table and chair and commenced to try and shave the dog. It was so nauseating and I gagged with each breath. I started at the tail and soon realized that I had to cut most of the matted hair out in order to shave it. The tail and legs were completely encased in mud and crap clumps of matted hair. Jeeze, I'm gagging just trying to write this! Scissors were useless and I got an idea. I went to my toolbox and got out my wire cutters, or nippers if you will, and started nipping away the clumps. It worked like a charm.

It took me 3 hours of gagging but I finally got the job done and it was time to give the dog a bath. This is what came out of that.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/30 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
All Clean!

I was glad to finally be finished cleaning this dog up. That night, although the dog didn't stink anymore, I still could smell that stench in my nose like my nostrils were saturated with it.

We spent the next couple of days trying to think up a name for the dog. We decided we didn't want to know what the dog's name actually was because to us, we were giving the dog a new life so it deserved a new name. This dog is always happy to see me and one morning when I woke up and was rolling out of bed, it was sitting there waiting for me to get up. As I sat on the side of the bed it started to lick my leg. It was then I decided on a name. "We will call you, Smoochie."

So Smoochie is the newest member in our family. She seems like a good dog. She's very friendly and seems to get along well with our other dog Missy. Obviously Shih Tzu are supposed to have longer hair, but I thought she is still pretty cute none-the-less. I was expecting something much uglier. lol

Happy Birthday Jade

2011-06-02T07:00:00.000+09:00

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 -- EXIF
A Birthday Cheese Cake

My wife's cousin is a talented baker and makes a delicious cheese cake. Jade decided she wanted a cheese cake for a birthday cake this year. It was pretty good.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/50 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Blowin' Out the Candles

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
iPod Shuffle

She has been asking for months now for a portable music player. Since I'm a Mac user, I decided to go with the iPod Shuffle. I was surprised to find that it was under five thousand yen. I have a clunky first generation iPod doorstop that cost tens of thousands back in the day. I also have a third generation iPod that's not much better. Look how tiny this thing is! It's just a bit larger than my thumb. One of the major turn-offs of the earlier iPods was their weight. Unless you had it in a case velcroed to your body somewhere, you really couldn't take them for a run or even shoot hoops without it pulling down your trunks or sweat pants. Anyway, now I see how small and light weight they become, maybe I'll get one for myself one of these days. A Nano seems pretty nice also.

So she was pretty excited to get an iPod shuffle for her birthday, but that excitement was almost lost as she opened her next present from my wife's older brother. It was a Justin Beaver autobiography. I guess Justin Beaner is every girl's dream.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/40 sec, f/2.5, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Justin Beeper Autobiography

It all started when she got a Justin Butthead CD for Christmas. She instantly fell in love with him. And then I made the fatal mistake of bringing her to a movie of Crustin Bieber, Never Say Never in 3D, when we went to America back in March. Imagine Justin Beaker's hair in 3D... I shuddered through the whole movie. I guess it wasn't that bad. The story was actually kind of intriguing considering he started out by just posting some videos of himself on YouTube. So with that, Justin Booger, I salute you...

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/80 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Personalized

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Birthday Card From Mommy and Daddy

We wrote a nice birthday card for Jade too, but as you can see, it was left on the floor as she hungrily devoured each page of her new book.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 32mm, 1/15 sec, f/5.0, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Just Won't Leave Me Alone

Here is another photo of our cat, Sneeze. Now, I like Sneeze just fine and all, but Sneeze and I don't get along that well. She stays out of my way for the most part. But that night, she just wouldn't leave me alone. Everywhere I went she would follow me around and stop right in front of my camera. Either I smelled like fish, or she's starting to lose it and can't remember who I am and that we're mortal enemies, maybe both. But, her she is sitting on the armrest of the chair I'm sitting on.

So I finally got around to backing up my photos. I let them pile up too much this time. Before when I would back up my photos, I would just go through and divide the different files up by hand and burn them to DVD. This time I had way too many to do by hand. So instead, I bought Titanium Toast 11 and let it do it for me. I tell you, it worked like magic. Made my life much easier. The only downside I found is, you can't use low quality DVDs or sometimes they won't burn correctly and you'll get failed burns. I had some low quality DVDs so some of the burns failed, but I was still able to get everything backed up.

Had to Stop

2011-06-01T07:00:00.000+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/1000 sec, f/3.5, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Roadside Beauty

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 40mm, 1/200 sec, f/5.3, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Relaxing in the Shade

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Bit of a Different Angle

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/50 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 -- EXIF
"Oh what a pretty flowOHMYGOSHSPIDER!!!!!"

As I was shooting the previous two photos, I had crawled just a bit into the bushes to get them. I failed to see this on the way in, but fortunately saw it on the way out, just barely.

In my previous post I mention that I finally got my camera working again. We had a typhoon come through last weekend but we've had fabulous weather after that. Since I got my camera out and functional again, I decided to take it to work with me and see if I couldn't find something to shoot. On the way home I came across some flowers on the side of the road and decided to stop. I'm terrible with names of flowers so I couldn't tell you what these are. Anyway, I'm happy to have my camera back functioning again, which reminds me, I need to buy a new PL filter since I lost my old one last year.

The Sneeze

2011-05-31T07:50:00.002+09:00

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/60 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Just Not Excited

This is our cat, "Sneeze". We named her sneeze because when we first found her as a newborn kitten, she had a cold, or something, because she kept sneezing all the time. Sneeze is an old kitty cat now. I'd say she's around 13 years old. She's a good cat, but she just couldn't give a care in the world about anything besides her supper.

So yesterday was our daughter's birthday. Jade turned 10 years old and she said it was her best birthday ever. This is a photo I took while we were opening presents with the family.

I finally got around to buying new batteries for my camera along with a new charger. The charger arrived before the batteries did and I decided to see if my old charger was broken by trying to charge my old batteries which I thought were dead. Turns out, it was my charger. In fact, all the batteries I ever bought for my camera that I thought had died, I saved and recharged them all with my new charger. I now have 6 batteries for my camera, great.

So this is just a quick post before I go to work. I finally backed up all my photos from about a year ago (way too many). After exporting my catalogs, I burned 13 DVDs worth of photos with my recently purchased Titanium Toast 11. I'll write more about that later though.

OK, off to work!

Nooooo!

2011-04-29T13:52:00.002+09:00

It's the beginning of Golden Week here in Japan. Golden week is a bunch of holidays clumped up at the end of April and the beginning of May. I decided to clean my camera gear up and get ready for this. Taking my camera out of my bag, I went to turn it on and, nothing. For just a few seconds, I went into a state of shock. I kind of got light-headed and I stopped seeing colors and everything turned gray. I've only had that happen a few times in my life, but not very recently.

It dawned on me that I haven't even turned my camera on in a few weeks and thought maybe my batteries were dead. I took them out and stuck one on my quick charger and none of the charging LED's would light up. I put the other one in and the same thing happen. I've had trouble in the past with my charger so I don't know where the problem actually lies. I figure there are a few possibilities.

1. My camera is busted and my charger is too.

2. My batteries were completely depleted and will no longer charge.

I know that the lith-ion EN-EL9 batteries for my camera have a tendency to not charge again after completely depleting them during use. It's kind of difficult to do, but I've done it twice before. Both times I had my camera connected to my computer and I was controlling the camera directly from my computer. I learned that if you run the battery down until it shuts off, you completely deplete it and it won't charge again. Maybe I just let the batteries I use now sit to long and the same thing happened? I don't know.

So I'm without a camera at the moment. I ordered two new batteries and also a new charger. Hopefully this will fix the problem and hopefully they'll get here before Golden Week is over. It was such a lovely morning and I was excited. Now I'm just pissed.

Women & Guns

2011-04-26T07:00:00.001+09:00

Canon PowerShot SD940 iS @ 5mm, 1/40 sec, f/2.8, ISO 80 -- EXIF
No Solicitors!

This is Grandma Gerry. I call her grandma even though she is not a blood relative of mine. She is in-fact a good friend of mine's mother, my Uncle Steve. Now, Uncle Steve is not in-fact my uncle, but he raised us up when my brothers and I were young, and he is more than family. This shot was taken out in front of my Uncle Steve's house.

I decided not to bring my camera to America for our trip home last month. I knew I would have plenty of things to carry so decided against it. In all honesty, I was torn-hearted about it, but I think I made the right choice considering how much we had to take home with us. These photos were taken by my Uncle Steve and his compact camera, a Canon PowerShot SD940 IS.

While visiting, we had the chance to go out and shoot some guns. You maybe thinking, "Holy jeeze, GUNS!", but I grew up on a reservation and having guns was a normal thing. I have a great respect for guns and I thought it would be a good experience for my wife and daughter who never really get the chance to be around them.

Canon PowerShot SD940 IS, 1/30 sec, f/2.8, ISO 160 -- EXIF
"Am I holding it right?"

So we took a relatively short drive up into the mountains to find a safe place to shoot our guns. Where we were shooting was perfectly legal. Before shooting, we gave my wife some pointers about how to shoot a gun. She got the whole, "Keep the butt of the shotgun in your shoulder." But she kind of blanked out when it came to how she should be standing. Here is a video of her shooting her first gun.

So that is a video of my wife shooting a 12 gauge shotgun for the firs time. We told her how to stand, but she go her left and right foot mixed up and had her right foot forward when she was shooting. I didn't take this video, it was my Uncle Steve. He know quite a fair bit of Japanese so he's the one asking her, "Dou desu ka?", which means, "How is it?" I got a kick of her reaction. It was priceless, "Whoa!!!!!!" You can hear someone before she shoots to tell her to place her footing better. I laugh every time I see this.

We also had a Glock 17 and we let my wife try it out.

After that we decided to let my nine year old daughter try and shoot the Glock 17.

When I had Jade shoot the Glock 17, I only loaded 1 round into the clip and cocked it so she had only one round to fire off each time she shot it. By the way, that's me explaining to her how to shoot. I tried to get my Uncle Steve's younger brother to take some video with my Galaxy S mobile phone, but he didn't hit the stop while recording and I hit the back button when finished and it didn't save any of it, oh well. In the second movie of Jade, the spent shell casing popped up back into her face and that's why she was swiping the air. It was a new gun and even though there was only 1 round in the chamber and none in the clip, the gun didn't lock back into the empty position after firing off her round. My only thought is that is was a new gun and needed some breaking into.

It was a good and fun experience for both my wife and my daughter. And just to clarify, none of these photos or movies were taken by me.

Sumomo in 2011

2011-04-25T21:23:00.007+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/125 sec, f/6.3, ISO 100 -- EXIF

I took this photo back in February. It was late in the season for sumomo, but I was able to get this shot coming home from teaching in Uken. Here is the post I made last year during the sumomo season.

My friend Jeffrey Friedl came up with a great plugin for Lightroom 3 that lets you use Photoshop, like a plugin, editing you photos in a non-destructive way. I tried his plugin for this photo.

I cropped the original in Lightroom and also adjusted some of the variable settings and then used Jeffrey's plugin to further enhance my photo in Photoshop duplicating the original layer and giving the duplicate a multiply blending and adjusting the opacity and fill. With this, I was able to bring the texture of the pedals out more, more than I could have in Lightroom 3 alone. Jeffrey's plugin made my work flow less of a hassle than I would have just editing directly out of Lightroom. I'm still getting used to using his plugin, but it makes my work flow much less easier when I want to edit photos more than the boundaries that Lightroom will allow. Much thanks to Jeffrey.

In the end, this photo isn't that great and I probably did more to it that I should have, but it was just a test for my friend's plugin. I think it worked pretty well. Here is the original photo if you want to know what it looked like.

I probably didn't explain how Jeffrey's plugin works to it's full potential, as I don't know myself, but it helped my work flow become a lot easier.

Aloe Vera in Bloom

2011-04-24T07:00:00.003+09:00

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/60 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 -- EXIF

I've seen plenty of aloe vera plants, but this is the first time I've ever seen one in bloom. I imagine that aloe vera are succulent plants, kind of like cacti, and only bloom once a year. I'm not sure how rare this is, but it's the first time I've seen it.

I took this photo on an family outing we had to go see the cherry blossoms early February. It's the first time I've seen anything like it so I though I would share it with you all.

Deconstruction in Downtown Amami

2011-04-23T07:00:00.000+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/1600 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 -- EXIF
All Walled Up

In the past few years here in Amami there has be planning going on for rebuilding parts of the city. It's a very controversial matter with different politicians and political groups about how Amami should be spending their money. I don't have any voting rights so it hasn't really sparked my interest as how it will affect me. I'm an English teacher and if it helps bring more people to Amami to live, I'm all for it. If it's just another way to attract tourists to a beautiful community, then yes, they could find another way to spend their money. But in that same sense, if by having more tourists come, income will increase giving the means for more people to send their children to me to learn English. Either way, I win. But, I really don't have an opinion.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/125 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Poster in the Window

This is a real photo of the city enhanced with 3D graphics to show the portions of the city they plan on changing pertaining to the area I live in. My mother-in-law's house happens to be just beside the road they are going to make, but doesn't fall into the plan. If it had, she probably would have gotten a new house out of it.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/1600 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Pinching Pieces Away

The buildings are so close together in Japan that all they can do is put up some scaffolding to protect the neighboring building from falling debris.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/2000 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Hosing the Rubble

I'm not sure why they water down the rubble. If I had to guess, I would say it was to keep the dust levels down. The only other thing I could think of was to prevent fires. I don't know.

These photos were also taken last January. I've been trying to go through the photos I've taken over the last 6 months, but there's just so many, it's almost discouraging. I suppose I have to be more strict with how I spend my time each day and set aside some time to write up post for the photos I've taken. The problem is being strict with myself. Sometimes I'm just so tired, I don't want to do anything but eat some dinner, take a shower and go to bed. I suppose that if a hobby feels more like a chore, it's not a hobby. But it's something I love to do so I'll be more strict with myself and try to set aside more time to do what I love.

Blown to Bits

2011-04-22T07:00:00.001+09:00

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Happy to See Me

This photo was taken along with the photos of my previous post. The third grade at Jade's school had an open house and after it all finished I was waiting for her out in front of the school steps. When I saw her come down I absentmindedly turned on my camera and snapped this shot without checking my settings from previously shooting indoor. I can't tell you how many times I've ruined shots like this because I forget to check my settings.

Anyway! Although it was a very blown out photo, I messed around with it in Lightroom 3 to see if I could make something interesting out of it and this is what I came up with. Here is the original. I did a bit of cropping, upped the recovery to full and upped the blacks a bunch. I also added a bit of clarity and gave it some graininess along with a vignette. I kind of like it considering it was a completely worthless photo to begin with.

Jade's Shining Moment

2011-04-21T07:00:00.001+09:00

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/640 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Open House for the Third Grade

My last post was about a picture my daughter drew and had displayed on her classroom wall when I went attended an open house back in January. During that open house I got to watch as the teacher taught double digit multiplication.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/160 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Waiting for Class to Start

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
The Nitty Gritty

Here the teacher is teaching the students just what's happening in the multiplication process. Although her method of teaching the was a bit different from how I was taught in school, I thought her way was pretty effective and easy to understand. As you can see in the above photo, she gave the problem 12x23 and divided the equation into two parts: 12x20 and 12x3. She then asked the students how they would solve this problem without dividing the equation.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Solving the Problem

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/1250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Jade's Notebook

At first you can see that she has made a few mistakes. It was after this that I gave her a small whisper and told her to remember what we studied that morning. She then furiously started to erase what she had and started over. Jade is a very bright girl, but math and Japanese is not her strong point. Knowing that, we take every advantage we can to help her with her studies. They have a supplementary study program here in Japan called Challenge. This program has different levels gauged towards which grade the student is in providing text books to help them better understand what they learn in school and give them more practice using what they have learned. Every morning before Jade goes to school we have her complete that day's portion of the Challenge program and help her if she has any problems after we check her work. Just that morning we had been practicing these same kind of problems and my method of teaching her was a bit different from what the teacher was teaching. So she did it my way.

After giving the students a moment to try and solve the problem she gave them, she called on a few to give their answers and tell the class how they came up with that answer. The first three students skipped a few steps and came up with the wrong answer. Then she called on Jade to give her answer.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
"Yikes! She called on me!"

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Explaining Her Answer

The teacher asked the first three students how they came up with their answers and wrote it on the board as they explained. The problem just to the left of Jade's paper is from the previous student's explanation. Since Jade got the answer right she just had Jade explain what she did. Since my method of teaching Jade was a bit different from how she was teaching the students, she didn't write what Jade was saying on the board. I was all "Come on!"

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
"My daddy taught me."

So the teacher asked Jade how she learned how to multiply like that and she told the teacher that I had taught her. In all honesty, I don't think my method is any different from what most people learn in America. I just think it's one of the differences learning mathematics in Japan.

Then the teacher had Jade sit down and actually went in detail how Jade got her answer as you can see in the next photo. I was happy she explained it that way. I thought it was easier for the students to understand.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
End of Class

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Bashful Girl

After class ended we congratulated her and she got embarrassed. Jade is easily embarrassed and I'll admit that I sometimes take every chance to embarrass her. I am a proud parent and it's times like this that makes me want to stand up and say, "That's my child!" But then I would probably get a punch from my wife.

Jade made me very proud when we returned home to America to visit family last month. We only speak English in our home and I do my best to help her learn English. We only watch movies in English and she only watches American cartoons in English. You may think this is plenty for a child to learn English, but in my mind, it's completely minuscule when compared to the amount of time she spends speaking Japanese at school, with her friends, cousins and other family. But when we went to America, she put my mind at ease as she slipped into a state and English took over. Obviously it wasn't perfect English, but it was good enough that I think a few of her relatives completely forgot that she lives in Japan and speaks Japanese. I couldn't ask for anything more. So when I see that she may not be that great at math and Japanese, I know for dang sure that she can beat the pants off most Japanese speaking English.

Instant Feast Machine

2011-04-20T07:00:00.003+09:00

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/640 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Feast in an Instant

I had the opportunity to attend an open house for my daughter last January. Some of the pictures the students had made were displayed on the walls of the classroom and I got a kick out of Jade's. When I asked what kind of machine it was, she told me it was a machine that magically zaps the food together. As you can see, she was probably hungry for something along the lines of a happy meal when she was making the picture. Although we don't have a McDonalds here in Amami, we do frequent the MOS Burger here. MOS Burger is a known gourmet fast food chain establishment throughout Japan. MOS stands for Mountain, Ocean and Sun.

When you first try any of MOS Burger's burgers, you think they taste pretty good. But after a while you get used to the taste and then it's not so tasty. I prefer my own barbecued hamburgers with pickles, lettuce, tomato, onions, smothered with American style barbecue sauce. Dang, I'm getting hungry!

Early Spring Day

2011-04-19T16:59:00.007+09:00

I know, long time, no posts. sorry It's been a hectic few months. In my last post back in January, I said that I was getting over a case of influenza. I missed a bunch of work that I had to make up and with as busy as my schedule is, it was hard to make up. We also had a trip planned for the end of March to the States to go visit family which made things even more difficult. I haven't been back home to the States in 8 years so dealing with getting new passports for the family and re-entry visas for myself, it was quite a hassle with no immigrations office here in Amami. To make matters worse, I got ear infections in both ears 3 weeks before we were set to leave. A few days before our departure date, my ears had not yet cleared up and I ended up getting minor ear surgery on my right ear. I'll tell you about that some other time. It wasn't pleasant.

So we got back to Amami the first week of this month and did our best getting back in to the groove of things. It was a new school year for Jade so we were busy trying to get her prepared. We had only returned home the day before school started for her. It being a new school year, I also was busy with my teaching job out in Uken. We had a whole load of teachers transfer out which meant we had a whole load transfer in. They had a welcoming party that weekend that I had to attend. I got to meet all the new teachers and found that most of the teachers I work with teaching English had transferred out. Now I'm in the process of learning to work with new teachers.

I got the afternoon off today and I thought I would go and look at the photos I've taken over the past few months and was surprised at how many I have. Although I haven't been posting, I'm still taking my camera out with me and taking photos of whatever. These photos were taken back in January at one of the schools I teach at. I'm not sure what kind of plant this is with the red leaves (are they leaves or flowers?), but they looked pretty so I shot them.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.0, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Kind of Late For Christmas

But pretty non-the-less

They kind of reminded me of poinsettias which they very well maybe, but I really don't know. It had rained earlier that morning and there were still water droplets on the red leaves which I kind of thought looked cool.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Poinsettias?

They sure look like it.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF

Hanging On

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 24mm, 1/60 sec, f/5.0, ISO 100 -- EXIF

Papayas in the Jungle

Just up the hill from where I was shooting, I noticed this papaya tree with a load of papayas growing. This last photo was doctored just a bit. I dropped the clarity a bunch and upped the blacks to give the brighter areas in the leaves a glowing effect. I thought it looked nice so I threw this one in too.

Naze and Itsubu Recreation Day

2011-01-30T17:22:00.004+09:00

First off, I'd like to say, influenza sucks butt! I caught it earlier last week and I haven't felt that sick in a long while. It knocked me flat. But, I'm recovering and now and I'm just trying to get over a nasty cough that I'm left with.

Last Sunday all the 3rd graders from my daughter's school, Naze Elementary, and all the 3rd graders from a nearby school called Itsubu Elementary, got together to have a recreation day together.

First order of business...
Dodge Ball!

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4 , ISO 800 -- EXIF
Lining Up

They played a few different matches. At first they had the children divide by school and then played all boys and all girls matches. They also had fathers play a match against theirs sons and did the same with mothers and daughters and at last, school against school. There were so many kids the school against school was almost impossible and all they did was threw in three balls and let the kids pelt each other. It was complete chaos and none of the children followed the rules. They'd get hit, pick up the ball and throw it right back without sitting out. But it was fun to watch the kids get so excited like that.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4 , ISO 800 -- EXIF
Throwing Heat

Jade is a pretty competitive girl and it's matches like this she really enjoys. She also started playing basketball this year for the school team and is having a ball (pun intended).

Next order of business...
Making Mochi!

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/400 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Smooshing the Rice

You're probably asking, "What is mochi?" Well, simply put, it's pounded rice. I don't think they use just any rice to make mochi, but a special kind specifically made for mochi making. They cook it like regular rice and while it's still warm they dump it into a large mortar like this and begin to smoosh it with large wooden mallets.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/800 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Just the Right Amount of Smooshing

Once the rice becomes quite pasty, it's ready to be pounded to into mochi.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/200 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 -- EXIF
The Pounding Begins!

They had fairly light mallets for the children to use and they let each child take a few swings at pounding.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/320 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Loads of Fun for Everyone

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 -- EXIF
The Big Mallet

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/1000 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Like Puddy

Once the rice is pounded into a puddy like consistency, it is ready to be divided up.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Dividing the Mochi

The white flour-like substance is most likely cornstarch. This is used to keep the mochi from sticking to everything. The mochi is divided up into golf ball size pieces and then is rolled into nice round balls.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Making New Friends

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/160 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Rolling the Mochi into Balls

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/160 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Enjoying What They Made

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/320 sec, f/1.8, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Group Photo

It was a great day and all the children had fun playing dodge ball, making mochi and making new friends. Some kids from my daughter's school didn't want to miss out and even though they were sick and had fevers, they still showed up to have a good time. I think it was here that I caught influenza. A few days later I wasn't feeling well and my daughter was sent home from school early because too many of her classmates were absent after catching influenza. Go figure.

Ghetto Studio For The Win

2011-01-14T07:00:00.000+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/30 sec, f/3.5, ISO 1600 -- EXIF

100% DIY

So in my last post I said I would make a post about my set up I used for my Halloween studio type photos and here it is.

I made this black backdrop with some fabric I bought at the local fabric store. I used 120cm wide fabric cut in 4 meter sections and sewed them together to make it. The backdrop is held up by 2 long bamboo secured by hooks and wire on opposite walls. I gathered a bunch of cardboard boxes from my wife's family's Sanrio shop and covered the windows with them and duct tape. My wife and I went to the mountains and gathered up 4 full trash bags worth of leaves to spread over the tarp on the floor. We bought 6 jack-o-lantern pumpkins and received some other types of squash to use as props. On the left side of the photo you can see a short table stood on end. This table was my reflection board. I covered it with aluminium top to bottom. On the right side of the photo you can see my DIY soft boxes and also a long florescent light covered in orange and yellow film.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/40 sec, f/3.5, ISO 1600 -- EXIF

My Soft Boxes

I made these soft boxes last year for last year's Halloween photos. I looked around the interwebz for plans for DIY soft boxes and ended up designing my own based on the materials I had at hand. The local hardware shop had some big plastic sheets kind of like corrugated cardboard and decided to use that for my boxes. I made some calculation and made a few mock-ups using A4 size sheets of paper. I designed them so that they were one piece and I would just have to fold and connect the edges together with duct tape. Before I folded them, I lined the inner side of the design with aluminium foil and then folded and taped them together. I cut a hole in the back and used a cheap garage drop light equipped with a 200 watt tungsten bulb. I made 2 of these soft boxes. The stand I used for these soft boxes is pretty basic. I got a large can (about 1 gallon size), stuck a long sturdy piece of lumber on the inner edge of the can and filled it with cement and let the cement set. Very cheap and works well as a stand. I also used duct tape to hold the soft boxes in place on the stands as the garage drop light's clips weren't very strong. I used an extension cord with multiple sockets with ON and OFF switches to power my lights. I turned off my lights when not in use because my soft boxes are made out of plastic and 200 watt bulb create a lot of heat. I've used these soft boxes twice now and have left them on at least 30 minutes at a time and I've seen no signs of melting plastic what so ever. The fronts of the soft boxes are covered in a rayon type fabric (not really sure what kind of fabric), and it did a very good job diffusing the light.

For my camera settings, I used my Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens for all my shots. I really don't have any experience using flashes so I only use low key lighting for my photos. Because I'm not using flashes I set my camera to Aperture Priority with an aperture at 2.2 to 2.8 with an ISO of 400. I usually get shutter speeds anywhere from 1/40 second to 1/80 second depending on the brightness of my subjects costumes. I left my White Balance on my camera on Auto and adjusted the white balance in Lightroom 3 when I post edited the photos.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/50 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 -- EXIF

Besides trying to get small children to hold still for shots, my biggest problem was shooting group photos with these settings. I really didn't have too much problems shooting smaller groups like the above photo of my friend Toshi Nagai's family. This next photo was a challenge.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/80 sec, f/2.2, ISO 400 -- EXIF

This was probably the most difficult photo to take. The room I'm in isn't that big and I had to position everyone so they're in the shot as well as the edges of the makeshift studio I made. I don't have a lot of room to back up and this photo pushed the limits of the size of the room's settings. The other problem I had with this photo is my wide aperture. Wider apertures have smaller focusing planes and 3 rows of people was very difficult. I had the people in the back lean forward as much as they could without making it look like they were leaning forward so that their faces were somewhat in focus. The lighting I was using was insufficient for the group I was shooting and used quite a bit of Fill Light in Lightroom 3. When you up the Fill Light, you get an amount of noise. I used a lot of Fill Light so I got a lot of noise and had to compensate with Noise Reduction and Sharpening. The above family wanted a S10R size photo printed (4PW Japan size), and I thought it turned out OK. If you got right close, 2 or 3 inches way, you can see the distortions from the Noise Reduction and Sharpening but couldn't notice if you didn't look close. I really don't like to use that much post editing on a photo, but this one couldn't be helped, I had to to make it look relatively nice.

So that's the set up I used for my Halloween photos last year. I'm going to make a slide show post of our Trick-or-Treat parade and maybe another slide show post of the other shots I took of my students and their family Halloween portraits.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-13T17:32:00.008+09:00

I apologize for not posting in so long. My last post was back in October just before Halloween when I was busy trying to get ready for Halloween so I guess I'll pick up from there.

Our Halloween Trick-or-Treat Parade went off without a hitch. We originally had the parade planned for October 31, but we had a typhoon come through days before and we thought it may interfere with our plans so we postponed it until November 3. I took studio type photos of my students and their families again this year and they turned out pretty much like last year's Halloween photos. This year, instead of making a big wall out of lumber I found at the dump, I bought some black fabric and sewed it together to make a backdrop and got a bunch of pumpkins for props as well as leaves to use on the floor. I just chose a few photos to share.

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/80 sec, f/2.2, ISO 400 -- EXIF

Daisy Duck

(Kanon)

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/80 sec, f/2.2, ISO 400 -- EXIF

Bat Girl

(Unoka)

Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/80 sec, f/2.2, ISO 400 -- EXIF
(Junki)

The kid's name in the above photo is Junki (joonkee). So no mistakes are made, I wasn't saying he was junkie or junky. lol

I'm pretty happy with how the photos turned out. There were a few difficult shots that I had to make of a family group using a wide aperture, but I think I'll save that for another post. I'll also make a post of the set up I used to take these photos (super low tech).

I tell you, I had a pretty terrible month with my internet connection. Here's my story.

Last month before Christmas my old Airport Express broke. Well, I thought it broke. I started to look for a new router and I wanted one that I could connect to by LAN and wireless. Apple's routers are a bit expensive and I decided to go with a NEC Aterm WarpStar WR8700N.

My new router arrived around the 27th and I got it out to get set up. After hooking it all up and going in and putting in my ISP settings I opened a browser and saw the internet immediately. "Great!" I thought, as I went to check my email. I use gmail for my email and things come up right away with no problems, but when I tried to send an email with an attachment, the router would stall and the ACTIVE light would go out meaning it wasn't connected to my fiber optic modem. I didn't know what the problem was and I started to search for online support since it was late and the Aterm Support lines would most likely be finished for the day.

While I was searching online for some support for my router, I remembered that I wanted to do a speed test of my connection now that I wasn't on a wireless connection. I went to a speed test site and started the speed test only to have it stall again and the ACTIVE light go out on my new router. Now here's where I get thrown off trying to figure out the problem. I didn't know whether it was a setting with my computer or the router so I decided to connect my computer directly to my fiber optic modem and so see what would happen. After getting it connected things went smooth and I didn't have a problem downloading or uploading. I figured it was a setting with my new router so I decided to call them up the next day.

The next morning after 9:00 o'clock I called up the Aterm Support Line only to find that they were closed for the holidays and wouldn't be back until the 4th of January. Ugh! So I waited patiently with only one computer being able to connect to the internet. Once the 4th rolled around, I called them up only to find the support line busy every time I called. I called several times throughout the day and wasn't able to get a hold of them on the 4th. I tried again on the 5th and finally was able to get through around noon. The support representative was very kind and helpful but in the end, she didn't know what the problem was and said that I may have bought a faulty router and told me to contact the store I bought it from and have them replace it for a new one.

I bought the router from an online shop through Amazon and called them up telling them my situation. They agreed to send me a new router. After talking with them I received a phone call back from them saying that they were sorry and didn't have any more in stock and I would have to wait until they were able to get some from the maker which would take a few days. It took a week for me to get my new router and once it arrived, I didn't want to take any chances so I called up support to have them help me set it up. They pretty much told me exactly what I did to set up my first router. I opened a browser and tried a speed test... It stalled again! What the freek! The representative asked me to try a few different things and we couldn't get it to work. She finally asked me what fiber optic modem I'm using and I read her the number off the back. She said that I had a pretty old modem and maybe that might be the problem.

I called up NTT and asked them to come out and check my connection. In less than an hour they had a guy out here with his laptop testing my connection. Low and behold, he couldn't get it to work on his computer either. It turned out that it wasn't my router that had gone bad, but my fiber optic modem and I never really needed to buy a new router at all. The NTT guy pulled out a new modem and hooked it up to my fiber optic line and connected his computer and it worked like a dream. I hooked up my new router and got everything going and now I have my internet back. Yeehaw!

Our holidays were pretty regular. We got together with my wife's family on New Year's Day, but with the rainy, cold weather we've been having, we didn't do much more than that. With the start of a new year, I'm back to work teaching again and busy as ever. We're planning a trip to America at the end of March which we're pretty excited about. I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season and I look forward to sharing more photos with you this year.

150lbs of Pent Up Rage

2010-10-27T07:00:00.000+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/125 sec, f/3.5, ISO 400 -- EXIF

Inoshishi

(wild boar)

I don't know if it's the demeanor of all wild boars, but this was one pissed off boar. I guess it doesn't take common sense to understand that wild animals don't like to be penned up. This guy was using its tusks to swipe at the fence hooking it like it was trying to gore me. Although he was in a cage, it was still kind of scary.

I actually had this post all ready to go to be posted and got caught up with work and forgot to post it a few weeks ago. So here it is.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/160 sec, f/3.5, ISO 400 -- EXIF

I See You

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/80 sec, f/3.5, ISO 400 -- EXIF

And Smell You

Now some people may think, "How cruel. Keeping a wild animal locked in a cage like that." But people in Amami think, "That's going to make a fine barbecue one day." I have quite a few friends who have licenses and guns to hunt wild boar including my wife's uncle and we frequently get the opportunity to eat some wild boar.

Oh, and I don't know if this boar is 150lbs, probably more like 100lbs. I was just guesstimating.

Amami Geography

2010-10-25T14:40:00.004+09:00

Google Earth Screenshot of Amami Island

I thought I would make another post and tell a little more about the deluge we had in Amami last week.

As stated, the above picture is a screenshot in Google Earth of Amami Island. The white lines on the map represent the boundaries between the cities, towns and villages. Although they call these areas towns and villages, they're not towns and villages in the sense that they are centralized places where people live. You could be in the middle of the mountains with nothing around you and still be in Tatsugo Town.

Amami Island has 7 different areas made up of cities, towns and villages. Starting from the northeastern part of the island is Kasari-cho (the cho means town). Next, moving to the southwest, is Tatsugo-cho. After that is Amami-shi (the shi means city). Just west of Amami-shi is Yamato-son (the son means village). South of that is Sumiyo-son. West of Sumiyo-son is Uken-son and Setouchi-cho is southwest of these. I don't know how confusing that explanation is but it seemed a little confusing rereading it. Basically I just moved from the northeastern part of the island to the southwestern part.

When Amami was hit by heavy rains Wednesday, every area in Amami experienced some degree of flooding, land slides, power and phone outages. There were also several areas that even lost mobile phone capabilities. Every major road in Amami became blocked in several areas due to land slides, flooding and erosion. I heard over the radio on the second day that they there were a total of 37 land slides on major roadways. Each and every area in Amami became severed from the neighboring areas and the rest of Amami. Hundreds of people in each area became stranded unable to return to their homes in other areas. I was one of them.

No matter where you are in Amami, you always have at least two ways to get home. The roads were blocked in so many places that pretty much no one was able to move from the area they were in. We caught wind that the people stranded in Koniya down in the southwestern part of the island would be able to take a special ferry home late Thursday night. I remember thinking to myself, "If I could only find a way down to Koniya." It was around 4:00pm on Thursday when we got a phone call saying the road between Uken-son and Shinokawa had opened up. Shinokawa is a small block (or a literal village), in Setouchi-cho. Shinokawa is pretty close to Koniya, but they still had a very large land slide just at the mouth of a tunnel in a small block called Yui between Shinokawa and Koniya. Here is a link where the land slide was in Yui on Google Maps. Anyway, on with the story. It wasn't more than 30 minutes when we got another phone call saying that it was possible to make it past the land slide in Yui but they didn't know how long it would be open for as it was only temporary. Well lickity split, I hopped a ride with another teacher who actually lived in Koniya and we hurried our way to Yui to see if we could get past and make it to Koniya.

We reached the tunnel in Yui and when we came out the other side, there was this towering wall of mud and rock in front of us. Luckily, they still had a sliver of a path cleaned on the very edge of the sidewalk to pass on. We made it past relieved knowing we would make it to our homes that night. I found out later that some of the other teachers in Uken that lived in Naze, were unable to pass after that and were stranded for another night. I think we were pretty lucky to pass from what I heard.

I live in Amami-shi and my commute to Uken-son takes me through Sumiyo-son on Highway 58 and then I switch to Highway 85 which leads the rest of the way to Uken-son. Thursday night, I was able to catch a 2 1/2 hour boat ride from Koniya to Amami-shi (Naze), and reached my home early Friday morning.

The roads in Sumiyo-son aren't completely open but are only open during the daytime and are closed at night. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the times they're open is 7:00am to 10:00pm. Yesterday, it took 2 hours to drive to Uken-son to pick up my car which usually only takes me 45-50 minutes. I figured the traffic would be backed up pretty bad in Sumiyo-son today considering how many people need to go to work in the morning at the same time so I left at 6:30am to get to the blocked areas early. To my surprise, the roads weren't backed up at all and it only took me an hour and 30 minutes to get to work today. I was even more surprised when it only took me an hour and 15 minutes to get home in the afternoon. Although the roads are still bad, they are getting easier to traverse.

It's only at the end of this post that I realized I keep spelling Sumiyo wrong. If you look in my previous post, I spell it Sumio. Not that big of a difference but, lol.

Natural Disaster in Amami

2010-10-24T15:07:00.009+09:00

OK, so I don't have a, "Things to do before I die." list, and sure enough, "Survive a natural disaster.", would not be something on this list if I had one. I just thought it would be funny to make one. Ha ha ha...

Well, dang, where to start? I guess I should start out with telling you how Amami got hit by a natural disaster and then tell you about my experience.

Amami is a subtropical island. In the spring, we have a rainy season. The rainy season is determined by weather pressure wether or not we have rain. We also get a slight rainy season in the fall, as the weather pressure turns back south (I think they call it tropical pressure in Japanese). With that tropical weather pressure line falling right across Amami, compounded with the effects of typoon Megi, we had unprecedented amounts of rain fall here in Amami. We had, in the city of Amami, a record of 736mm from the time it started in a little over a 24 hour period. I read on a news site somewhere (but can't find the site again), that stated the record of rain fall in Amami, over a 24 hour period, was 500 something millimeters an hour in 1976, which was completely destroyed by this new record. With a first hand experience, I can say that it was a scary 24 hours.

Although I've only heard of major natural disasters like the sunami in India, earth quakes in Haiti and Chile and things like hurricane Katrina, being this close to something this big makes me realize just how devastating natural disasters can be, being a part of one. It doesn't compare to those kinds of major disasters, but it was a disaster none the less and I feel for those who have been effected by them.

The rains started on Tuesday night. I remember being at home and hearing the hard rain start at around 11:00pm. I have satellite TV and it was about this time that I could no longer watch TV. I tried to go to sleep but the rains were so heavy it kept me awake most of the night. I eventually went to sleep only to wake up at about 5:30pm to the sound of the rain. I got up and went to my school where I teach English and started to prepare for my lessons for the day. I hadn't heard of any warnings at all and just went about my day. By 7:30am, when it was time for me to head out to Uken, we decided that I should drive my daughter to school. While heading out, I absentmindly left my backpack full of my the items I use for my lessons, along with my wallet, mobile phone and money at the door. I drove my daughter to school and made my way out to Uken (which is an hour drive to the board of education offices in Uken). It wasn't until I arrived at the offices that I had realized forgot my backpack. "Oh well", I thought. I then drove out to the school I was scheduled to teach at in Nagara and taught my classes. I finished up just before noon and then started for home. The rain was more than usually but I didn't think anything of it as I knew we had a typhoon close (unless you're in the middle of a typhoon, they're not that worrisome).

As I was making my way home, I came across several places where rainwater gushed from the side of mountain and left amounts of silt and rocks in the road. Again, I chalked this up to the heavy rain, but didn't think anything of it (not thinking things could get worse). I made it about half way home when I came to a place in Sumio where the water was exceedingly deep. I parked my car and got out in the rain to see just how deep it was to see if I could pass. I walked about 100 meters in knee high water around a corner only to see that the river in the valley had overflowed and the entire valley had turned into a huge ravaging river. As soon I saw this, I knew I was in trouble. I rushed back to my car as fast as I could, got back into my car and drove as fast as I could back to Uken. Here is a link to Google Maps of the area that was flooded by the river all along Highway 58.

While driving back to Uken, I came across places that had loads of silt and rocks deposited by water cascading off the mountain that wasn't there before when I came. It was then I felt this growing feeling like, "Oh crap, this is big!" With my windshield wipers at full blast, I hurriedly made my way over and down the mountain towards Uken. There's a small bridge at the bottom of this road that only one car can pass at a time. When I crossed this bridge going home, I noticed how much the river had risen, but the bridge still had a good 2 meters of clearance above the river water. When I reached this same bridge, the river was just brimming it with water flower over the road on both sides. I stopped the car just before the flowing water before the bridge and hesitated, deciding whether not I should cross. Although the bridge was being overcome by the river, it didn't seem to be in any immediate danger, so I floored it and shot across the bridge and flowing water and made it safely across. There were several places after the bridge that were flooded, but I was able to drive my car past and make it back to the offices, which were in a safe place. Here another link of the bridge I floored it across in Google Maps. This place actually has a road view if you zoom in close enough. When zoomed in close before you get to road view, you'll see a concrete company that makes concrete ditches and things of that sort on the southern side of the river after the bridge and a couple of orange orchards on the northern side. This was all completely submerged by this river. While looking at this bridge in road view, the buildings you see plus the large tree near the buildings were all you could see besides the river. It was huge.

I was completely drenched from walking in the rain and luckly, but not so lucky, the offices had a washer and drier in a kitchen type area that I could clean and dry my clothes. I borrowed a small hand towel to cover myself as I washed my clothes (as they were dirty with brown muddy water I had tried to walk through previously), and as I had just started to dry them, the power went out. "CRAP! I don't want to wear wet clothes!" went through my mind. "Oh well, I'll just have to manage." I thought, just as a bunch some of my students' mothers walk into the room where I'm buck naked covered by a lonely hand towel. It was an embarrassing moment, needless to say, and I covered my privates with the hand towel in one hand and retrieved my wet clothes out of the drier with the other. They sensed my embarrassment and one mother said something along the lines of, "It's nothing we haven't seen before." as every single one of them continued to watch me. Ugh! "If you've all seen this before, why are you staring so hard to catch a glimps!" I thought. I hurriedly dressed and made my way to the main offices.

The power was out, but it just so happen that the Uken Fire Department shared the same building as the Uken Board of Education and had a power generator. So with the power generator, we were able to to get power to some of the power outlets in the building. Though we had power to some of the building, the phone, satellite TV and internet were out. We caught wind that the town hall also had power and was able to use their phones, satellite TV and internet and wondered why we couldn't. I figured that our building's networking structure didn't have power to these utilities and it got me thinking. "If I could find the local hub for these utilities and run an extension cord to them, I could probably get them working." I voiced my idea to the rest of the people in the office and they immediately said, "lets not mess with that." I knew it was a simple matter so I started to check around the building for a room that housed the networking devices for the phone and computer network servers. I found it and then (without asking), grabbed a very long extension cord and stung it out to the room I had found. I then unplugged everything in the room and connected them into the extension cord I had strung, plus a few multi-connectors. As soon as I had everything connected, one of the fire department personnel came running in saying, "We have phone and internet capabilities!" No one knew that I had done this and when I told them, they all started praising me like I'm some sort of genius. I then told them they could probably watch TV too and they checked and saw it was working, they went bananas. I'm not saying I know all about server networks, routing, phone lines and things of the sort, but I know enough to know that if someone else in the area has it, we should be able to also. So I single handedly helped the Uken Fire Department regain communications of more than their mobile phones. It wasn't that great of a feat, but it seemed like it to them.

They don't have any big stores in Uken so food became scarce the first night, everyone having bought most of the instant food in the first couple of hours hearing it was going to be a disaster. While I was washing and drying my clothes, the announced that they were going to evacuate a bunch of people in the surrounding area. With no food, people donated rice and other things to feed the evacuated people, hence the mothers' of my students barging in on me while I was drying my clothes to start to prepare food for the evacuees.

How long should I make this post? Well, I guess I should tell the whole story, so it's going to get long.

Emergency rations are, well, emergency rations. The rice that was donated was divided and put into long plastic bags. They also added some watered-down soy sauce, tied the top of the bag off with a rubber band and boiled the contents for 30 minutes. What came out was a ball of putty rice that didn't taste that bad. That morning my wife had made me a breakfast sandwich that I had halved with her since I'm on a diet. So from the morning at 6:30am, I didn't have anything to eat until about 8:00pm that evening. I was hungry and didn't complain with what I had.

The next day, everyone was assessing the damage. With no breakfast, I headed out with a few members of the Uken Board of Education to assess the damage to different schools in our district. We checked the schools and headed back to the offices. More people had donated more food and they decided to make curry rice. They tried to stretch what they had and the curry became curry soup. The rice was the rice they had made the previous day and the soft mushy rice was now a cold, hard, thick ball inside the plastic back. Not having very much to eat in well over 24 hours, it was delicious.

We heard that the southern city of Koniya was going to have a boat to ferry people to Naze that evening. When I heard that I thought, "If I could only make it to Koniya." Well, as luck would have it, word came over the radio that they had opened a way to Koniya, albiet the road was very round about. Several teachers that work in Uken don't actually live in Uken. When they heard this news they started to make plans to make their way to Koniya. I din't know if I could find a place to park in Koniya, as parking is hard to come by in Japan, so I left my car in Uken and found passage to Koniya with a fellow teacher who actually lived in there. I was able to by a ticket and I found my way back to Naze early Friday morning.

So I've been back in Naze since Friday waiting for the roads to open up. I heard today that they were open but the backup was pretty bad. Since I have work tomorrow, and they probably expect me to be there, I decided to go pick my car up today. I borrowed my brother-in-law's car and made my way to Uken with my wife.

These are the photos I took of my way to Uken today. I didn't want to cause a hassle so all the photos are literally point-and-shoot, just putting my camera out the car window or shooting inside from the car as I was driving. They've had a couple of days for clean-up and it's not quite like I saw it the first and second day, but you get an idea how bad it was.

Here's the slideshow

You get an idea of just how bad it was, but as I said, they've had the chance to clean up so roads aren't as bad as they were the first and second day. They were able to move most of the silt and rock from the middle of the roads to provide safe passage but, in the hairier places, it's still pretty nasty. They also flew in a bunch of Japanese Defense Force personel to help with the disaster as you can see in some of the photos.

So those are the photos I took from the city of Amami to Uken passing through Sumio Town. This is just one section of Amami that was hit hard. There are plenty of other places that were hit just as hard, but I don't want to add to the traffic jams and hassles, just to get some photos so this is all I took.

Also, I wrote this up and tried to double check it, but I know I have a bunch of spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes and I just don't have have the time to run over it several times to look for mistakes. Feel free to e-mail me if you find any. I'll fix those up when I get the chance. Tahnsk... lol

Post Edit: Fixed up a some spelling and added a few Google Map links as well as widdle down the amount of photos I had in the slideshow to about half.

Field Day in Amuro

2010-10-12T12:22:00.000+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/1600 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF

Competition Underway

September 26 was the set day for the schools in Uken to hold their field days. Amuro Elementary/Junior High is the furthest away for me to commute to and it takes me about an hour and twenty minutes to get to. Two of the schools I visit only have a handful of students and Amuro is one of them.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF

The Entire Student Population Minus One

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 20mm, 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF

Doing Their Best to Pose for the Camera

There are three junior high school students and four elementary students. Recently they had a family move to the village from Okinawa and the elementary numbers were boosted by two.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF

Amuro Nursery School

Since there are only a handful of students they have the whole village community join the event. Even the littlest ones get a chance to do their thing.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 24mm, 1/1250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF

Ecstatic Cheer

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 22mm, 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF

Not Rambo, But Tough None the Less

This is Shutaro. He's in 9th grade and is a great young man. His father isn't around and his mother does her best to support him. They've recently been working on speeches for an English speech competition they're going to have next month in Uken. His is about his mom and how appreciative he is of her. I was very impressed with him when I heard him read his speech to me for the first time. How many teenage boys you do you know that are thankful for their parents?

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28mm, 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 -- EXIF

Jump Rope Competition

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 34mm, 1/3200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 -- EXIF

All In

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 26mm, 1/3200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 -- EXIF

The Students

I teach at all 5 schools they have in Uken and since they all have their field days on the same day, I couldn't stay long at each school in order to visit them all. So these are some of the shots I took while I was there. My next post will be of Nagara Elementary/Junior High.

I'm still going through photos from this day and also my daughter's field day. It's taking some time. I took a lot of photos. On a happy note, Halloween is coming! I'm thinking up some sort of backdrop to use to take photos this year. I'm thinking of going with something simpler than last. We'll see. I also came across a bit of information that I thought was kind of cool. This October 2010 has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays all in 1 month. This only happens once in 823 years. Not sure how true this information is, but it seemed kind of cool. I would have expected it to happen a little more often. January this year also had the same as October and July this year had 5 Thursdays, 5 Fridays and 5 Saturdays so I guess they're only talking about October and just the weekends. I don't know.

Coming of Age

2010-10-10T07:00:00.001+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/80 sec, f/10, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Japanese Cicada Molting

I took this shot at one of my the elementary/junior high schools I teach at in Uken. During lunch time while I was eating lunch with some of my students, I found this little guy on the tree next to me. I knew it was a cicada, but I didn't know what part of its life cycle this was. It turns out, after some study, that it's in the middle of molting. After coming out of its shell it will have wings. This is when they sit in trees and sing their boisterous songs to let you know, it's summer.

Miffed

2010-10-08T18:55:00.004+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 42mm, 1/160 sec, f/5.3, ISO 100 -- EXIF

Towering Spires

I don't have a clue what these flowers are called. I think this is the first time I've actually noticed them. As I said in a previous post, after picking up photography, I'm more aware of blossoming flowers and things or the sort. I don't think I used to be.

So why am I miffed? Let me explain. It was gorgeous day and I rode my bike to work. I decided to take my camera along and this is one of the many shots I got. I had my PL filter on and I got some very rich blue skies and vibrant greens. I figured I would just sling the camera over my shoulder while I rode and stop to take shots of anything I thought was interesting. I stopped to several time and got a few good shots. I was almost back to the city when I was stopped by a bunch of police officers handing out cookies and pamphlets to everyone passing. They call this a "rode safety campaign". Now I can understand giving these kinds of things to people in cars, but for people on bikes it's just bothersome. I didn't have any pockets so I had to pull my bike off to the very side of the road to take my backpack off and store my cookies and pamphlets. Since I was so close to home, I decided to put my camera back in my bag as well. As I was doing so, I noticed that my PL filter was no longer attached to the lens. NOOOOOO! I lost my PL filter. So now I have to order a new one. I don't know how it fell off. I had a slight dent in it so it actually went on my ring-ups kind of tight. I'm not sure if that's what you call those things. They're the rings you use to adapt larger filters to smaller lenses. Anyway, I still had those on my camera so how it fell off, I don't know. Oh well.

Life in Your Hand

2010-10-06T07:00:00.000+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/3200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 -- EXIF

Just another random photo of my daughter holding an acorn-type nut in her hand. I forgot to mention that I recently bought a new piece of gear for my camera. As I was out taking time lapse photos of the stars, I was trying to think of the best way to deal with my batteries running out of juice and I decided to by a battery grip for my camera. The grip I bought allows me to use 2 camera batteries or 6 triple A batteries. I don't know if it's just me, but I put fully recharged batteries in and I don't know how many thousands of photos I took before I had to recharge again. I'm pretty excited.

Speaking of time lapse photos, last month on the 8th was a new moon. I told you all how excited I was to get out and try some more time lapse and hoped for some clear weather. Well, I got my wish. That day I got all prepared and put my tripod in the back of the car along with my snake catching gear just in case I come across a habu. I filled the car with gas and was all set to go. Night time rolled around and I put the rest of my camera gear in the car and headed out. I tried a few different locations trying to find a nice spot. When I actually found a spot, I went to the back of the car to grab my tripod and low and behold, NO TRIPOD! What the freak! I knew I put it in the car. I called my wife and asked her if she took it out and she said she didn't. Then she says, "Oh wait, my older brother borrowed the car today. He probably took it out to move his stuff." I was furious at the whole situation wondering why I just didn't check before I left. Lesson learned, AGAIN... By the time I got home, it was too late and it clouded up the next couple of days so I missed my chance. The next new moon is this week on Thursday and I'm hoping for some clear weather again. I'm also going to use a film camera this next time to see if I can't take some star trails. That would be neat.

Eeeew!

2010-10-04T13:01:00.004+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF

If anyone knows me, they know that I hate spiders and bugs. Can't stand the thought of them. But there's times like these when I bite my lip and try not to run away in screaming hysteria swiping at those invisible bugs and spiders crawling up my legs and back... But it's all good when I get home and look at the photos I took and think, "I got pretty close to that sucker!"

I'm still going through the couple thousand photos I took this past month or so of different schools' undokai (track and field days). So just another small post.

Something Stupid

2010-10-03T18:17:00.003+09:00

I like to play online computer games, plain and simple. But, I don't get to play as much as I like. One of the games I like to play is World of Warcraft. WoW (World of Warcraft), takes a bit of time and effort to play (well at least it does for me), s0 I don't play it like I would like to. So I play games that I can just hop in and play and then leave when I need to. One of those games is Counter Strike Source. It's a FPS game (first person shooter), and it's pretty straight forward, kill the other team. I've only started to play it recently and playing on Japanese servers, most people have a "spray" they can use in-game. This is the spray I made to use when I'm playing.

"Mr. B" is my gaming handle in Counter Strike. I've gotten quite a few laughs at this spray. Most people use Japanese anime characters like Pikachu or whatever (I don't follow Japanese anime so I don't know), but they get a laugh at the "and died" part because I completely suck at the game. Even though I completely suck at the game Although I play on Japanese servers for Counter Strike, a lot of foreigners play this game that understand English. It's pretty fun.

I know this doesn't have anything to do with photography. I've been busy with work and family so I haven't had the time to go through the photos I've been taking. Now you might be thinking, "Instead of playing online games, you should focus on your photos." Well, in all honesty, it doesn't take a lot of thought to play FPS games, and that's what appeals to me. While writing up a blog post, I have to think about what I'm writing and make sure spelling and grammar are correct which I completely fail at if you haven't realized already. But instead of playing games tonight, I decided to take the time and go through my photos I've been taking over the past couple of months. I have so many of them that it's going to take some time and I thought it would be good to post something that wouldn't take so much time to post. But it's taking more time than I thought it would.

Anyway! I've been busy with work this past month or so. In Japan they have school events called undokai which, pretty much is track and field day. I have loads of photos that I've taken from the different schools that I teach English at of their undokai. I've been going through them today picking out the photos I like and preparing them for posting. The photos are not that great, but they'll give you sense of what track and field day is like here in Japan.

Today was my daughter's undokai so I'm going to do my best to get the different photos I've taken posted up on my blog. There's just so many that I have to go through that I need to make a schedule for posting. I have way to many to go through, but I'll do my best. Hopefully some turned out nice.

Dainty

2010-09-20T20:45:00.002+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 -- EXIF

We had a holiday here in Japan and I took the family out for a drive. We headed down to the southern city of Koniya for some gelato and then took our drive to the mountains. As we drove this is one of the many shots I took of different things I thought were interesting. I'm not sure what these blossoms are called. They weren't on a bush but more of a larger, almost tree, type plant. I don't have a clue what it was...

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 36mm, 1/400 sec, f/10, ISO 400 -- EXIF

So I took a few photos here and there on our drive and I'm trying to make some time to make some posts of them. Nothing that great, but I thought they were pretty or interesting. Anywho, I need to get back to work so I'll talk to you all soon.

Crazy for Crawdads

2010-09-08T14:53:00.002+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 60mm, 1/160 sec, f/4.2, ISO 800 -- EXIF

Hunting

Well, I'm back into the swing of things. Summer vacation is over and I'm back teaching again at the elementary and junior high schools in Uken Town and at Shinai Yochien (the Catholic preschool here in Amami City). As before, I don't have the much time to get out and take photos as much as I would like, but I'm trying to make some time for that and we'll see how it goes.

It was another blazing day today and I rode my bike to work this morning. I forgot to put on some sunscreen and I got quite a nice sun burn on the way home and now I'm starting to feel it.

These photos were taken last month when I took the family to the river. When we first got there we were the only ones there. After a bit, a few more people came to catch crawdads. The guy in these photos is a school teach for one of the schools here in Amami City. I forget which school he said, but he was there with a few of his co-workers. This teacher is from Kagoshima like many teachers here in Amami.

This was the first time I've seen anyone use this method for catching crawdads. Usually they use some sort of bait like cooked rice and find a nice calm, shallow spot to sprinkle some rice in and sit and wait without putting their whole body in the water. These guys brought along goggles and snorkeling gear for the job. I suppose it's a lot more fun and cooler this way, but my wife's family never does it like this. My wife's family are crawdad catching pros. I'll be out and catch 5 or 6 and they've already caught like 20. It's crazy how good they are. It makes me wonder if there's some sort of trick to it. I don't know.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/160 sec, f/4.0, ISO 800 -- EXIF

Moving in for the Catch

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/160 sec, f/4.0, ISO 800 -- EXIF

Yanking It In

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 82mm, 1/160 sec, f/4.5, ISO 800 -- EXIF

Caught in the Net

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/160 sec, f/4.0, ISO 800 -- EXIF

Carefully Untangling It

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/160 sec, f/4.0, ISO 800 -- EXIF

Out of the Net

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/160 sec, f/4.0, ISO 800 -- EXIF

A Prize Catch

Some people boil their crawdads, others fry them in a pan. I like mine deep fried so they're nice and crunchy. Crawdads here in Amami (I'm not sure about other parts of Japan), are quite different from crawdads in America. The crawdads I've caught back in America look like small lobsters. These look more like shrimp with long thin claws. Here is a photo I took last year of Jade and a crawdad she caught. And here is a post I made from last year with some photos of crawdads we caught and put in our aquarium in our classroom.

I wasn't very conscientious about framing when I took these photos, but after getting them all on the same page like this, I realized I really like them. Most of all of them have a sense of depth to them and certain elements that make these photos look nice like the bokeh of rocks in the foreground as well as in the background. As for framing, I think the Rule of Thirds is starting to get instilled in my brain and it's becoming a natural thing. As I said, I really didn't think about the shots I was taking, but I think they turned out pretty nice. Even if they are of a wet, half naked guy... Not really my cup of tea.

Clear Night Attempt

2010-09-04T07:00:00.001+09:00

So this is what I ended up with from last Wednesday's time lapse shooting. As I said, I didn't know that what I was shooting would move out of frame so quickly. I know better now. What I really need is a wider angle lens. I've been putting a lot of thought into my next camera and I've decided to stick with Nikon and buy a D300s. I'm not going to buy it anytime soon, but with that camera in mind, I can buy a ultra wide angle lens. I've been doing a bit of studying on what would be a good lens and I've heard a lot of good things about the Tokina AT-X 116 Pro 11mm-16mm f/2.8. This lens is made for cropped sensor cameras but the only bad thing is, the auto focus doesn't work with Nikon AF-S cameras. Since the D300s doesn't have a problem with this, I'm going to get this lens before before I get the D300s and use it with my D60. I won't be able to use the auto focus, but hey, I can manage.

I have all these lenses I think I need and would love to get, but I think I find myself wishing I had a wider angle lens than anything else. So I've made the decision that my next investment will be a new wide angle lens.

Oh, and how did YouTube get that gaudy top photo for this movie? None of the photos I used looks like that first photo. It's kind of deceiving.

The settings I used for these shots were: Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 26mm, 30 seconds, f/4.5, ISO 3200, Auto Focus off and White Balance off. I'm sure that I zoomed the lens all the way out when I first set up the camera. I don't know how I zoomed it in to 26mm. The shots were taken with a 30 second shutter and about 30 seconds between each shot. The movie was put together with 71 photos at 15 frames a second.

The Milky Wayness

2010-09-03T07:00:00.004+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 25 seconds, f/3.5, ISO 3200 -- EXIF

Mmmm, Chocolate....

OK, now that I got my Homer Simpson out of the way... lets move on. It was gorgeous weather yesterday and I thought it would be good to go out again and try my hand at some time lapses of the stars. Needless to say, I'm still a newb at star photography and most of all my shots, setting-wise, turned out great, but my framing was way off. I've never tried a time lapse of stars (on a clear night), and I didn't realize how fast what I was shooting would move out of frame so quickly. I suppose I learned a lot that night and we'll see how I do next time.

So my time lapse shots didn't work out quite like I would have liked them to, but through this experience, I've learned a lot... again. How's that old saying go? "Practice makes perfect.", but I've also heard that, "Perfect practice makes perfect." I guess I still have a ways to go till, "Perfect practice".

So these are some of the time lapse photos I took that I thought were kind of interesting. I didn't do a whole lot of post editing. I upped the Vibrancy and Saturation and did a bit of Noise Reduction in Light Room 3, but that's about it.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 30 seconds, f/3.5, ISO 3200 -- EXIF

Can You See The Shooting Star?

The shooting star in this photo is at the very bottom just above the tree line in the middle. It's kind of small but you can see it, if you squint really hard.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 30 seconds, f/3.5, ISO 3200 -- EXIF

OH MY GOSH! A UFO!!!

Not really. A firefly just happened to fly in front of my camera as I was shooting.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 30 seconds, f/3.5, ISO 3200 -- EXIF

Shooting Star

This shooting star looked a lot more brilliant when I saw it. It looked like someone was shooting off a bottle rocket. When it happened, I had hoped that I caught it in my frame. It turned out I did, but it didn't look as cool as it did when I saw it.

So those were some of the shots I took during my epic fail attempt at taking some time lapse star photos. I'll see at making a movie on what I did get, but it will probably be only a few seconds. On an up note, I did buy a battery grip for my camera a couple of days ago and I should have a chance at taking longer time lapses next time. Next week, on Wednesday the 8th, is the new moon. If weather works out, I'm going to try again with, no mistakes hopefully, at taking a time lapse of the stars. We'll see how it goes.

Post Edit: I was just trying to read up a little more on how to take photos of the stars. It seems this section of the Milky Way is the Scorpius and Sagittarius region. I didn't have a clue what I was shooting. Not that I care what part I'm shooting right now, I just noticed a lot of people said what part they were photographing.

I Spy a Dragonfly

2010-08-29T07:00:00.000+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-.5.6 @ 200mm, 1/80 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800 -- EXIF

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 200mm, 1/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800 -- EXIF

Here's a couple more photos I took from last Wednesday. These dragonflies are different from the ones you normally see. The wings don't stick straight out to the sides. Instead, when not flying, they go straight back and are together. This second photo was just after it landed so it's winds were apart. When they fly, they kind of flutter like butterflies and not the zippy decise movements of normal dragonflies.

Ugh... I'm dreading the thought of going back to work next week. But hey, it was fun while it lasted.

Reposed at the River

2010-08-28T07:00:00.001+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/50 sec, f/4.0, ISO 200 -- EXIF

This is one of the photos I took from last Wednesday on our outing to the river. It was a nice warm day and the cool water washed the uncomfortable mugginess away. Jade caught a few tanaga (crawdads), and spent most of her time swimming. She brought her camera along, but I have yet to upload those photos to a computer to look at.

Tiltshift Maker

2010-08-27T21:15:00.011+09:00

I was cruising the interwebz tonight and I came across a neat site that titlshifts your normal photos for you called TiltShift Maker. I've been interested in tiltshift lenses but always thought they were for the professionals and people who had money to spend on those kinds of expensive lenses. I would like to have a tiltshift lens, but I'm poor and a tiltshift lens is not on the top of my wish list. So with that, I thought I would try it out.

Now when I first came across this site, I was apprehensive. So I took a look at the flickr group they had and took a look at some of the photos people produced with this site. After going through quite a few photos, I became aware that photos taken from above looked better than the photos taken at ground view, or level, photos. With that in mind, I thought of some photos that I took from an upper perspective and came up with these two. I hope you like them.

This photo is from my post of the 2009 Hachigatsu Odori post. The original photo I posted is here.

This is a photo I posted earlier this month of the Amami Matsuri 2010. The original photo I posted is here.

I know this isn't a real part of photography, but when we mess up photos in whatever application we use, how is this much different? I thought it was a pretty cool site and I thought I would try it out. With that said, I think these photos turned out a bit artistically different that what I originally produced and I'm happy with that.

My First Attempts at Time Lapse

2010-08-27T07:00:00.001+09:00

Well, this is my first attempt at trying to make a time lapse movie sequence. I've seen plenty of very nicely put together time lapse movies and I thought I would try my hand at it.

Attempt #1

This video contains 133 photos taken about 40 seconds apart. My camera and settings were: Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 15 seconds, f/2.0, ISO 1600. The exposure program was set to manual, auto focus turned off as well as white balance. The photos were put into sequence using Quicktime 7 Pro with 24 frames per second, if I remember correctly (I forgot to write it down when I saved it). I had too much time between shots and it was pretty jerky at lower frame rates.

Let me start off by saying, I understand this isn't very good (actually craptastic more like it). For quite some time now, I've wanted to go out and take photos of the stars on a clear night. While searching the interwebz for some information and advice about this, I came across several places that had time lapse movies for star photos and instantly thought I need to learn how to do it.

It just so happened that yesterday we went to the mountains to play at the river and have a barbecue when my wife dropped my mobile phone in the weeds before returning home. After returning home, I taught a few classes and went to call one of my students, but couldn't find my mobile phone. I asked my wife and she said she put it in the bag, which is wasn't in. We searched the car and came up empty handed. We finally concluded that we must have dropped it while loading our things into the car at the river. Since I had to drive to the mountains anyway to look for my phone, I decided to bring my camera gear and see if I couldn't take some time lapse photos.

It took a little over an hour to get to the spot were we parked by the river and it took me a few minutes of searching before I found my mobile phone. After that I decided to head deeper into the mountains were I could get further away from city lights and the like. I don't think the conditions could have been worst besides it being completely cloudy and rainy. It was cloudy with lots of patches of starry sky which I thought was OK, but it did sprinkle rain a few times. Luckily, I was set up under the back lift door to my loaner car we're using, so things stayed dry. We had some car troubles last week so we took it to the Honda dealership to get it worked on and I forgot my nice tripod in the back. Because it has been obon, the dealership has been closed and I had no way to get my tripod out the back. Instead, I had to settle with using kind of flimsy aluminium tripod I borrowed from my friend Shoriki. I figured if I kept it low and didn't extend the legs, it should be steady enough to take the kind of photos I wanted. If you look closely at the movie, I think I bumped it because the angle drops a bit part way through.

So it was partly cloudy with some rain at times, I didn't have a decent tripod and to top it off, it was a full moon and very humid. It was pretty clear despite the clouds and then a fog came creeping out of the jungle. But did I let this discourage me? Not the least. I'm going to learn time lapse photography and since this was my first time, I figured no matter how bad it turned out, I would have a better understanding of what I need to do and do things better next time. Oh, and you're probably wondering how I timed the shot intervals? "One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand..." And I used my remote to trigger the shutter. I know there are plenty of devices out there to time shot intervals, but I haven't decided on one to buy. I also looked at time lapse software that I can tether my camera to a computer and use. I found a great application for Nikon cameras and Macs called Soforbild. I actually hooked up my Nikon D60 via USB to my iMac and took some time lapse shots inside my classroom. I thought it worked great. Now I just need a Macbook to bring with me when I go out to take time lapse photos.

When I first set up everything and took a few practice shots, the first thing I noticed is that long exposure shot under a full moon can look exactly like daytime. I was so surprised. When I hit the playback button and seen this really bright daytime looking photo, I thought maybe I hadn't taken the photo in the first place. With how foggy, cloudy and humid it was with the full moon, I didn't think I was going to get any shots of the stars that night. So instead, I decided to take over exposed photos that look kind of like daytime and see what the clouds would like like. The above movie is what I ended up with.

Some mistakes I figured out right off, is I can't shoot in RAW format. It takes too long to save to the memory card and it's too taxing on my camera battery. I had a fully recharged battery and I only got off 133 shots. Now here's a kicker, the battery I used when I first got there when I was setting up taking practice shots was only about half full. Earlier in the day, it only had one battery level on the charge mark and before I swapped it out for a new one, it was back up to 2 out of 3. So I figure it was probably around half full. I switched my camera settings just a bit and also switch to normal JPEG format and swapped back to my first battery. I was able to get off 109 shots before the battery ran out of juice. Here is the movie for my second attempt.

Attempt #2

I basically just turned my camera facing the opposite direction for these shots. This video has 109 photos taken at 25 second intervals. My camera settings were: Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 8 seconds, f/1.4, ISO 400. Again, all manual and no white balance. I put it together using Quicktime 7 Pro and this time the frame rate was 15 frames per second. I accidentally threw in a test shot at the first of the movie. That's why it jumps at the very beginning.

So these 109 photos were taken with only a half a battery. It makes me think how many I could take with a fully charged battery or maybe even a battery pack grip, hmmmm. It also makes me think what it will be like on a clear night with no moon. *smiles big*

Although these two time lapse movies are completely sucktacular, I still feel pretty good about them. It was my first time trying out something like this and I learned so much from this experience. I'm excited to get out again in a few weeks when there's no moon and see what kind of photos I can take. There's so much more I want to write in the post, but I think I'll cut it off here.

Learning LR3

2010-08-26T07:00:00.001+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/200 sec, f/4.0, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Random 2010 Obon Shot

I took this shot last Sunday while my wife's family was at their haka. I wanted to try out the new Grain feature under Effects in Lightroom 3. I thought the graininess of the photo turned out pretty nice.

Before adding the grain, I switched it to Black & White, put the Recovery at 100 (had just a few blown out spots), upped the Fill Light and Blacks. I then raised the Contrast to 85 and the Brightness to 65 and then gave it a Vignette. Lastly, I gave it some graininess. Here is the original photo if you would like to have a look.

So that's just some photo I chose to mess up to learn how to use some of the new features in Lightroom 3. In all honesty, I was never any good at using Lightroom 2 even, but meh, I enjoy using it. :P It makes things so much easier.

Flower of the Sun

2010-08-25T07:00:00.000+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 29mm, 1/640 sec, f/8.0, ISO 400 -- EXIF

I took this shot on the way to my wife's family's haka on Sunday during the first day of obon.

Obon in Amami 2010

2010-08-24T07:00:00.002+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, 1/100 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Nagata Bochi

(Nagata Cemetary)

It's typical Japanese tradition to cremate the remains of family members passed away and keep the ashes in these monument like family graves. These stone monuments are called haka.

One of the three major holiday seasons in Japan is obon. Traditions for obon vary greatly throughout Japan, but one thing is certain, obon is a time for honoring one's ancestors. I don't know what obon traditions are like in other parts of Japan, but I'll tell you what they do here in Amami.

Obon usually last three days. Before obon starts, the family cleans house sort of like spring cleaning. They do this in order to receive the spirits of their ancestors. Obon is a Buddhist festival and it is believed that our ancestor's spirits come back to visit during this time.

At the beginning of obon, the family goes to their haka and pay their respect first.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/40 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Grandma Kaoru Paying Her Respect

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/50 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Jade Paying Hers

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/80 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Once respects are paid, a candle is lit and placed inside a lantern in order to help the spirits find their way back to home. The lantern is then carried back home all the while keeping the candle lit.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 116mm, 1/800 sec, f/4.8, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Keeping It Steady

Once home the spirits are then placed inside the family butsudan. A butsudan is kind of like a mini shrine inside families' homes. The spirits are kept their for the next 2 days. On the 3rd day, the spirits are then brought back to the the family haka in the same manner. Respects are paid and that marks the end of obon here in Amami.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/500 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Showing the Way

I kind of like this photo because the girl is holding on tightly to a bottle of Coca Cola. My grandfather loved Coke and you probably wouldn't need a lantern to help him find his way back home, just a bottle of Coke...

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 135mm, 1/400 sec, f/5.0, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Lanterns come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors. Jade has carried the same lantern for a few years now and it's not that fancy. Maybe next year we'll get a little nicer one to carry.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 72mm, 1/80 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Checking Out Some Bugs

I waited back some to see if I couldn't take some random photos of people walking by with their lanterns. I thought Jade and Hikari would have been home by then but as it turned out, they were waiting for me in the shade of these trees by a dried up riverbed checking out some bugs.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/40 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 -- EXIF

I'm Good at Engrish

"Baby! Love your hug♥"

"Rainbow Revive. Walk on the Dreams."

"Precure"

Precure is pronounced purikyua and that actually comes from the English contraction, Pretty Cure. So go figure, I never could understand how they come up with names like this. Anyway, Precure is the name of a cartoon for young girls here in Japan.

Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 200mm, 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 -- EXIF

Heading Home

So that was our trip to the cemetery to pick up the spirits of my wife's father's side of the family. I wasn't particularly pleased with the photos I took, especially the first one, but I needed one to show you what a typical Japanese cemetery looked like. You only see a small portion of the cemetery in the first photo. Nagata Bochi is actually very large and is probably much bigger than a football field. The haka are built right next to each other with no room in between and you get a sense of claustrophobia looking out across this garden of monuments.

Cleaning My Gear

2010-08-23T07:00:00.001+09:00

Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6, 1/200 sec, f/3.5, ISO 400 -- EXIF

Yesterday was the start of obon here in Amami. The official holiday was from August 13th to the 15th, but most southern islands like Amami go off the traditional lunar calendar and started on the 22nd until the 24th.

I planned on taking some photos of obon this year and I got my camera gear out to clean yesterday. It being summer time and me being quite a sweaty person, my camera and gear gets kind of grimey at times. I try to keep my gear as clean as possible, but sometimes I just don't get the time after using it to clean it. So I took some time to clean my camera and lenses before I went out to take some photos.

After cleaning my gear, my daughter had some coloring pencils out and decided to line them up and take a shot to mess around with in Lightroom 3. I recently upgraded to Lightroom 3 and I haven't really had the chance to mess around with some of the new features it has. I didn't plan on posting this photo, but as I was messing around with it, my wife came up and took a look at what I was working on and thought it looked nice so I thought I would share it.

I did a bit of everything to this photo. I upped the Recovery to 100, upped the Fill Light along with Blacks a bit. I also upped Brightness and Contrast just a little, put the Clarity and Vibrance to 100 and upped the Saturation just a bit. I did a bit of Sharpening and Noise Reduction and gave it a Vignette. Obviously this photo is also cropped a bunch. Here is the original photo to show you how much I did to it. Not that much, but completely different.

Jade's First Basketball Tournament

2010-08-22T07:00:00.000+09:00