Bridge to Somewhere

We went up to the Itsukashi area today to check out a waterfall. We came across this really neat looking bridge that led to a really neat looking restaurant. We ran into a really friendly Japanese guy that had a long conversation with us in Japanese… I think he was telling us how badass the restaurant up ahead is.

The bridge was shaking a lot from the pedestrian traffic walking across it and probably a little from the wind. I was happy that the photo came out at all, albeit a bit blurry.

“That really was a Hattori Hanzo sword.”

This is the restaurant that Quentin Tarantino modeled the O-Ren Ishii fight scene after. It was kind of expensive by our standards, but it has a pretty awesome atmosphere and some really good food.

I have never liked eating anything that swims; I can tell if a cow has ever swam across a stream and I will then refuse to eat it, and I especially do not like shrimp. It turned out the shrimp we had at Gonpachi was not only good, it is one of my favorite meals I have ever had.

Moar?

Oh yes, yet another photo of the Tokyo Tower masquerading in blue drag. I am barely half done going through my photos. Unfortunately, I have come across completely lackluster sky tones in a lot of my pictures that are usually out of my technical grasp of Photoshop doctoring expertise.

Pinwheel Army

While taking pictures around the Zozoji Temple Grounds, we spied this gathering of statues replete with pinwheels and beanie caps. I would have missed this shot if my wifey hadn’t pointed it out to me. I must get her addicted to photography. The only children we need are more camera bodies and lenses!

Lighter Than the Eiffel Tower

The Tokyo Tower is the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world at 332.6 meters, 13 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower of which the design was based on. It also used advances in steel manufacturing and construction technology to weigh in at 4,000 tons, 3,300 tons less than the Eiffel. One-Third of the metal was scrap metal recycled from 90 US tanks damaged in the Korean War.

Dust..

I have got loads of dust on my sensor at this point. The vacuum cleaner nozzle method is no longer doing any good… Luckily I have some sensor cleaning tools headed to me in the mail right now.

All of the photos I took of the tower were using a small aperture to keep as much in focus as possible. But it also magnifies my dust colony that thrives on the sensor. I am spending way too much time cleaning it up in Photoshop…

Blue Tower

The weather turned out to be perfect for the blue lighting of the Tokyo Tower for World Diabetes Day. We had packed enough clothes for an arctic expedition and the weather was almost too warm for a light jacket when walking around. The clouds were perfect as they did not bring rain or obscure the tower, they only provided a stunning backdrop for the tower during the night.

I took a ton of photos of the tower, most were 3 exposures so I can hopefully get some neat HDR shots from it. I am sure I will be whoring a lot of those pictures on my blog for the next few days. Here is the first and only shot I have processed so far.

Fog?

I need to time a trip to the Okutama area when it is socked in with fog to capture some really unique shots of the bridges along the reservoir.

It was surprisingly cold the day we went up there. About 20 minutes drive from the spot where this photo was taken, a thermometer was reading 5 degrees Celsius!

Happy World Diabetes Day

Today we are off into the heart of Tokyo for a few nights stay close to the Tokyo tower. Once a year it is painted with blue light in honor of World Diabetes Day. Hopefully I can get some decent photos of it! This photo has nothing to do with the Tokyo Tower, but it was taken in Akasaka which is close to where we will be staying.

Lava St.

Here is another slightly interesting picture taken through the window of our hotel in Singapore. This is an HDR shot that I am surprised turned out since I had my camera sitting on top of books and jammed into the window. My D40 lacks auto-bracketing so I had to manually move dials to capture each separate exposure value. This time it was about as sharp as I could expect to get it using such a ghetto method.

27 Floors

This was taken from the lobby of a hotel we stayed at in Singapore earlier this year. Absolutely amazing interior and very nice rooms. The Holiday Inn Atrium also has extremely reasonable room rates and is very close to the Clarke Quay River Walk.

This was the view we had from our room on the 26th floor-

Falling up to Okutama

We are crossing our fingers that the weather will be nice this weekend so we can get some good pictures around the Okutama Lake area. We didn’t make it last fall, but it seems like a perfect area to capture the fall colors.

So far it has been an awesome week with Obama being elected. Hopefully our good fortunes will continue with blue skies at Okutama!

Okutama Toothpick Factory-

More Moon?

Where is a full moon when you need one?

Photomatix

I have already said it once, but I will say it again; Photomatix is such an awesome program for people who like that tone map sort of thing. Here is a random snapshot I took that was pretty drab until I tone mapped it with Photomatix.

Taken at Asakusa Temple-