Camera frustrations

As I left town the other night, I looked at the sky and it was this incredible shade of light purple with white clouds. I couldn’t see a good place to pull over and try to capture it.

夕方に運転する中に空を見った。とてもきれいライラック色い空と白い雲があった。駐車できる所が見えなかったから、写真を撮らなかった。

When I finally found a place, it had changed colors and my camera still didn’t capture the range of colors that I saw.

所が見つけたら、空の色が変わった。でも、カメラより目の方がいっぱい色を見えた。

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Photo Challenge Day 8

March 8: Leap

This is photo challenge fail day. I had the leap idea. I wanted to set the flash behind me and light the background and not me. Now that I’ve tried it, I’ve got an idea of how I could do it next time for better results.

The failed photos: 1. Totally out of focus, using the remote. 2. The shutter speed was too fast for the flash, only a portion of the sensor was even exposed while the flash was firing. 3. One of the many jump shots where I only managed to get part of myself in the frame. 4. An interesting portrait that ended up being lit by the flash behind me (all white walls work pretty well as reflectors to get the light back down on me.

The gear:

What I used to take these shots: Nikon D5100, a speed light, a super cheap tripod, a remote and a wireless flash trigger (one part for the camera and one part for the flash).

I think, to take this picture again, I’d find a white sheet and hang it, light it from one side and have me jump on the other. I also might need a bigger space.

All in all, it was good because I haven’t experimented with the flash very much since I bought it. I really like the way the lighting in the picture on the bottom right turned out.

I took a ton of pictures, I suspect that anyone who could see the flash going off again and again in my window thought I was nuts.

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Today was the last day the 3rd year students were around before Graduation. They first and second year students planned some fun games to play and a video. The video started with all the commercials the kids had recorded for school festivals. Things like a beer commercial (with the commercial in the bottom left) and the kids acting it out using school milk. The majority of the video was pictures of them over their 3 years of JHS. I’ll be sad to not see these kids all the time anymore.

One last adventure, part 2

After our travels on Yagishiri island, in my earlier post, H, R and I continued on to Teuri Island.


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When we got off the boat, we were greeted the man from our Hostel who had worried when H called, in perfect Japanese, if we could speak enough Japanese. He loaded our stuff into a cart and then accompanied us to the bike rental shop.

We rented bikes from the very kind people in the shop, who almost acted as though we were the only foreigners to have ever come to the island (I’m certain this isn’t true because I have friends who recommended coming to the island).

Then, we met the island’s police man.



He warned us that recently there had been a few accidents with visitors when they decided to cycle the island (as we had decided to do) and rather than stop to look at the scenery they took their eyes off the road. He cautioned us to be careful and if we wanted to look, to pull off to the side and stop.

Both he and the cycling shop warned us that we would go around a corner of fairly easy riding and then it would be steep riding for about 3k. We set off, following the directions to make sure we had water with us before we got to the steep part.

But, as expected it got steep, too steep for either H or I to stay on our cycles for long.



R on the other hand has been doing lots of insane rides lately and was able to stay on her bike slightly longer.



The view from near the top made the ride very much worth it (though we did consider jumping in a few times, but decided not to as we’d have to get back up).



Though it’s not an amazing picture, look at how blue the water is.



As we cycled the island, we ran into our cop friend several more times. Our conclusion is that with about 350 people on the island he doesn’t have enough to do, so he make sure the tourists are ok.



From the top, we went out to a viewpoint, where we were able to see many kinds of sea birds.

When we got to the Ryokan we had decided to stay at, we were amazed to find that it looked straight out on the docks.



After a quick shower, it was time for dinner.



Dinner was full of fresh seafood and uni (sea urchin). Unfortunately for us foreigners, the uni was still moving. Every time we touched it, the tentacles started moving. I was quite afraid to eat it.

Thankfully the ryokan owner came in to check on us and see if we knew how to eat it. When we responded that we did not, he came over and showed us how to break it open.



Unfortunately, it still continued to move. Despite this problem, I did manage to taste some of it (you eat the orange-ish part). It wasn’t bad, but it sort of tasted like sea-pudding, mostly just salty. It wasn’t bad and I can eat it, but it’s not something I’d choose on purpose again.
When we finished, we headed out for a walk and to see the sunset.





I’m not sure if this picture is going to do it justice, but it was a gorgeous sunset. Including a view of Mt. Rishiri.



On Monday morning, we woke up to another yummy Ryokan breakfast.



Though, I was surprised to find that the egg in the middle was raw. Apparently you’re supposed to mix it with rice and soy sauce.



I’m not sure I’d call it good, but it definitely wasn’t as bad as I had expected.

After breakfast, we gathered our things, returned the bikes and set off once again on the ferry.

Unfortunately, the clouds were low, so we had a soupy sort of fog to look at as we returned.





We made it back to the mainland after a fun weekend, anticipating the next weekend (and bit of the week) to be filled with English Camp and more fun last times together.

One last adventure

When H, R and I realized that we were going to have one last weekend adventure together, we decided to plan to do something a little bit more epic than usual. We decided to aim for the islands Teuri and Yagishiri, off the coast of Haboro, Hokkaido.


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Friday night, I picked H up from the train station and we crashed at R’s house for the night.
We had a lot of fun laughing as the last of the preparations were made before bed.



Saturday morning it was raining, so we decided to take our time and not rush out to the islands.
Since we decided not to hurry, we thought we might try to see some famous wetlands in Uryu-cho. As we drove down the tiny, one lane, gravel road, we came upon a bear. It was a baby and we were in the car, so it wasn’t very scary, but it was quite exciting because we all had heard bear warnings, and kind of wanted to see one, though we didn’t want to get hurt.



When we got near the area for the wetlands, we discovered that we would have to hike in and none of us were dressed well for that, plus the people coming back were wearing bug nets. With H’s allergic reactions to mosquitoes, we decided it was a good idea not to go down the trail, but to just go see a small waterfall.




As we continued our drive for Haboro, R and I decided that we wanted to stop at every Michi-no-eki along the way. Michi-no-ekis are a cross between a rest stop and a town information center. Most of them have cool local products.

In Hokuryu, we found a michi-no-eki with sunflowers and dragons.



I ate the sunflower seed ice cream. It was pretty yummy.

Our next stop was in Obira, to get a photo of their welcome sign, complete with a dinosaur head. This stop also resulted in a new pair of kitty shoes.



Next was a stop at the oldest building in Hokkaido and it’s michi-no-eki.



H decided to have a lick of ice cream.



And was surprised when her tongue actually landed on the ice cream.



That night we decided with the rain that had been coming on and off, that it would be  good idea to stay in Haboro and head for the islands the next morning. We stayed in a nice Youth Hostel.

On Sunday, we got up fairly early for breakfast and our boat ride to Yagashiri.



On Yagashiri, we had a nice walk in the rain and a peek through the oldest building on the Island – it used to be a place to stay, a bank, a post office and a shop. Maybe the first shopping mall?

We also saw some sheep and upon finding out the population, decided there were likely more sheep than people, and thus deemed Yagishiri the New Zeland of Japan.



This post is turning out longer than I thought. So, I’ll continue our island adventures in the next post.

Tengu Matsuri

The Tengu Matsuri this year was for me, yet another photo challenge with my new camera. Last year, I managed to get a few decent shots by pushing my camera to the max and then playing with the shots a bit in Photoshop. This year, with a new camera, I was excited to see what would happen.

After last year, I knew that the Tengu would be walking through the fire. I also knew a good place to be able to see over the crowds (and being short, that’s important). But I hadn’t used this camera very much for this sort of setting yet. I don’t know how it handles with all the manual controls or what the highest iso that is acceptable to my eye is yet.

So, keeping those things in mind, out I went to experiment with the camera and have some good times with friends.

The evening of the festival we were supposed to have a barbeque at the campsite. When we arrived at the barbeque pits, we found a swarm of mosquitoes. We decided to head back to N’s house and have the barbeque there. But, the re-adjustment in plans meant we made it out to the scene of the festival later than anticipated.

R and I decided to go for the stairs that overlook the whole thing again, maybe people are put off by the fact that they have to move when the Tengu and floats come through, but it was one of the last places open where I knew I’d have a good angle on the activities.

Here are a few of my favorite shots:




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