ume part II

Otaku in Japanese pretty much means nerd and is used to describe people that go overboard with a hobby. Often people that sit indoors all day reading manga are called otaku. In Japan there's also camera otaka (which mika now calls me). They have all the greatest gear, usually at least two bodies and lenses that cost as much as most peoples cars. so i was at the castle still and noticed a big crowd of people with cameras so thought i'd better have a look. Not sure if they were a camera club but there was about 20 people set up taking photos of some type of bird on an ume branch. Looked fun so i unpacked my tripod and got out my 70-200 and teleconverter and joined in.

Here's where everyone was setup. there was about 20 photogs
and their groupies. most of them had the camo for their camera and lenses
and weird little seats that only a japanese person could sit on.

after people got bored i got a shot of my setup. nikon d80 with
sigma 70-200 and new velbon carbon fibre tripod. It's nice to use
a tripod that i can use at eye level.

Here's the fake ume branch they were putting small worms and
seeds on to attract the birds. they would put it on the flowers then
go back and hide behind the bushes and wait for about 15mins for
the bird to come back. get a few shots and do it all over again.

here's a few of my shots. It was really difficult
to get the exposure right and off course it all happens withing
a couple of seconds so easy to miss the photo opp. sorry don't know
what type of bird it is.

this was my favourite out of the keepers. again
the exposure is a bit screwy but it was midday and too
many others shooting the same thing to use my flash.


just a few more bird shots from around the park

Osaka Castle Ume (plum blossom)

Osaka castle is one of the more famous places in Japan to see Ume (japanese plum blossoms). there's a huge park at the bottom of the castle with heaps of different types of trees that will be in bloom over the next few weeks. Usually this time of year any parks that have any ume are full of old retired men with their thousands of dollars of camera gear and foreigners like me doing the sightseeing thing. I'm not really interested in flowers so not sure why i've been to so many places lately to see them but thought it was a good opportunity to get some different pictures of osaka castle.

I got to the castle around 8am and was greeted by an old man dressed as santa taking pictures of himself in front of the ume. I was suprised that there was only a few people there but was happy because i could take my time to get some pictures before the clouds came over.

santa having some "me" time away from mrs clause.

Osaka castle with some white ume in the foreground. I used
an sb600 for some foreground fill flash to get the nice blue sky
properly exposed. As they say a flash is best used in bright daylight.

It was strange to see an old man using a disposable camera.
It seems everyone over here owns an SLR camera. the hat is
pretty cool though. looks like a member of the MG club.

While i was walking around the lady on the right started talking
to me and asking question about where i'm from etc. After that she took
me for a walk and introduced me to the guy on the right. He's quite a
famous painter in Osaka and he showed me his photos with some famous
TV celebs for tv shows he's been on. here's a webpage with some of his
work http://www.geocities.jp/kumabati87/newpage13.htm. One thing
i'm really going to miss is how friendly old people are in Japan. sadly young
people seem to be as rude here as everywhere else in the world.

i think this bird is called meguro or something. Mika has told me a
few times but if it's not a pidgeon or seagull i can't remember the name.
anyway i like the colours and contrast here.

the castle from a different angle with pink
ume in the foreground.

some white ume but on a really cool tree with all the
branches draping to the ground.

this is how busy it was by about 11am. Photographers and
old women everywhere. Because i have a nikon camera often
old men will come and talk to me about cameras and point me in the
direction of good photo spots. It seems over here anyway not everyone
has switched to canon and a lot of the old guys are still shooting 35mm
or medium format.

Awaji daffodil farm

We went to Awaji Island with Mika's parents last weekend to visit a daffodil farm. It was the first time i've been to awaji and the famous bridge. i think it's the longest suspension bridge in the world or something. I couldn't believe how busy it was. there were traffic jams all the way to the park and once we got there we had to park a few km's away and catch a shuttle bus the rest of the way. I'm not really into flowers but it was a nice scene next to the ocean.

me and mika posing at the bridge. were on awaji side here with kobe
on the right.

the path leading to down to the entrance

posing in front of the flowers.

the ume were in bloom also. they're about 2 weeks early
this year.

two photos blended for shadows and
highlights

took this while waiting for the bus. couldn't resist
taking a photo with the yellow and blue sky.

new lense :-)

i posted just after xmas that i bought a new lense. I got a new nikon af 80-200 f2.8dn. It is supposed to be a great lense but it wasn't so i took it back and got a different one. I ended up with a sigma 70-200 APO EX DG HSM MACRO (i love these long names). I love this lense and can't get it of my camera. I haven't really been anywhere since getting it to really test it out but i can't wait to get back to australia to try it out on some motocross and surfing. anyway here's a few pics showing what it can do. CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO VIEW LARGE SIZE.

the grand opening and yes cathy that's the michelin
man beanie.

the first shot with the lense. mika is holding one of our
souveniers from Hokkaido last summer

a seagull near our house.

and another one. I'd never tried to take photos of birds in flight
before and it's a lot more difficult than i thought. I was pretty
happy with the few keepers i got.

shinkansen (bullet train) at sunset between osaka and kyoto.

some type of bird in the park near our house.

in the park again. I really like how the lense renders
the OOF areas. It has much better bokeh than some would
lead you to believe.

same park. just playing around with the RAW abilities, shadows
highlights etc.

Mika near our house on a cold winter morning. i was a bit excited
to try out my new lense the next morning, so up early on sunday, no
time for hotcakes. I was told this lense is warmer than the nikon but
i've found quite the opposite and the contrast is just as good if not better
than the 80-200.

setsubun

some time in the past the Japanese celebrated the start of spring as the start of the new year. So before the end of winter they hold a festival to ward of all the evil spirits to start the new year clean. We went to a small festival at Yamazaki just north of Osaka. There's people dressed up as the devil and people chase them away. It seems the highlight of the festival is when the 7 gods throw mame (beans) into the crowd. If you manage to catch one you start the year with good luck. Most people get a bit desperate and things get a bit rough. Some people even resort to picking them up of the ground. I copped a few elbows and flying hands but it was all a good laugh.

even the animals getting in on the act. One thing i've noticed in
Japan is if there's a cute dog anywhere, women of all ages go nuts. The
dogs must get really pissed.

the 7 gods. well it would be if i got them all in the shot. so just
imagine there's another 3.

this is after the festival. The good people
had chased him out of the temple.

people were using everything to try and
catch the beans. You can see in the top left the
woman throwing the packets of beans.

just a wider shot of everyone using jumpers, jackets, hats,
bags, beanies and children to catch the beans.

just the entrance to the temple.

Tennoji

the weather had been pretty shitty for about a week so on the next fine day i decided to go for a wander around Tennoji. It's known as the bad part of osaka. lots of rubbish, homeless people, crime and of course with crime you get the underworld. I kind of like it. It has an old feel and there's a great walking course that takes about half a day, covering lots of temples, shrines and some old fashioned paved streets. I got miserably lost but luckily an elderly lady pointed me in the right direction.

tennoji temple (same as last post)

b&w treatment of japanese temple roof and afternoon moon.

shake here for good luck. You throw your
money in a tray and shake the rope three times
then pray.

nothing in particular i just love taking photos
of these on the roof. most temples have different ones.

some big orange doors at tennoji. They were about
3.5m tall.

another good luck thing. buy some incense, burn them, wave them aound
until they go out (if you blow them out it's bad luck). put them in the big
thing then cover your ailing body part with smoke. Mika usually puts it
on my head because she thinks my brain needs fixing.

a carp (koi) in a japanese pond at tennoji.

Doya Doya?? ( i think)

I went to two festivals on the same day and can't remember what this one is called. It was at Tennoji in Osaka. First we went to a Kushi Katsu restaurant above daimaru in umeda for lunch with Mika's mum. I love kushikatsu. All that deepfried goodness. It's kind of like fish and chips but you cook it yourself in the middle of table as you want it. I had the mix pack. so some squid, salmon, prawns, beef, mushroom and some other vegetables.

Mika and her mum at lunch. you can see the deep fryer
in the middle of the table.

after lunch we went to tennoji for the festival. We got there about an hour before it started but it was already too busy to get a good spot for photos. Any festival in japan is full of amateur photographers with their full kit. Before i got a decent camera i would always get lens envy everytime i went to a festival but now i realise they're just trying to make up for being short :-). so the festival is something to do with luck (like every festival here). Young boys dressed in the undies run around in the middle of winter trying to catch pieces of paper while their teachers throw cold water on them. How much some of my teachers would have loved to do that to me. It was pretty funny and the teachers had a great time. Everyone let out a huge cheer everytime caught one of the lucky charms.

Here they are heading to the main temple. They all are screaming
yashoi ( i think, don't know what it mean)

here's the young kids. they didn't get any water thrown
on them though. notice the big yellow buckets of water on the left.

and lastly the fun part of the festival. it seems boys are more
likely to wear a g-string in japan than women.