Global Chillin

The wifey and I went into Odaiba on the weekend which is a man made island connected to Tokyo by under water roadway, the amazing Rainbow Bridge, and an unmanned train amongst other ways in. There is so much photographic potential to easily warrant a couple of visits in an attempt to capture even a fraction of the potential this island has. I think this huge amount of potential affected my brain and it became overloaded just thinking about all the neat things around me. I ended up becoming too relaxed with my camera and made a few big mistakes.

First, inside the Miraikan Museum of Science and Innovation, they had this amazing LCD globe of the world with massive windows which made for an amazing scene that required more dynamic range than my DSLR could capture in 1 shot. I planned to bracket my shots as I usually do for architectural scenes and ended up taking a large series of shots without the bracketing turned on! Now I have a bunch of series of 6 and 9 shots all with the exact same exposure which happened to be set for the inside only.

Then once it was dark, I turned my ISO up a bit to do some hand held shots. I then inadvertently left the ISO up the rest of the night which turns the D80 into a hot pixel factory on long exposures and seemed to rob me of a lot of color with the shorter exposure times. Needless to say, I will need to go back and try again. Maybe I am feeling the effects of photography intoxication, but hopefully this 2nd lesson keeps me more aware of what I am doing in the future.

Bokeh Train

Don’t forget that any visit to Japan is not complete without the obligatory handle grip on a train with bokeh photo cliché.

Flow

Tokyo is an amazingly dense city comprised of a complex system of buildings, roads, and rail, but what really boggles the mind are the veins and arteries underneath the city. I have no idea how the Japanese engineers have managed to keep the towering building from succumbing to earthquakes while practically every square inch of Tokyo has been hallowed out underground. Here is a small glimps into one of the pores of Shinjuku. Yes, I happened to be doing  lines at the time.

Lines

Well it is true, I have been doing lines again.

I still remember the first time I did lines was when I was at a castle in Turkey about 3 years ago. My equipment was very amateur and I had no idea what I was doing. Eventually it takes over you, but I am still in control.

Now a lot of our money goes to my habit, but I can stop whenever I want. I swear.

Beaters

Before I joined the Air Force my life evolved around 2 things: skiing and skiing. I grew up for 10 years at a ski resort and after graduating high school I proceeded to work at resorts as a bit of a ski bum for 5 more years. Skiing literally was my life, the reason I hated summer time and the only thing I thought about.

I ended up joining the AF mostly because I needed to find a way to break the cycle and start working on school so I could start the grind towards retirement so I could finally ski again, except not being in my prime.. It didn’t make sense, but I did it anyways and ended up meeting my amazing wife and finding my love for traveling. Anyways, after 6 years of cold turkey, I finally went skiing this week at Nozawa Onsen; possibly the most humbling day I have ever had.

I still thought a lot about skiing in my mind because I am weird like that and still go through powder withdrawals, so I thought I would not have lost too much of my brain cells dedicated to balance, technique, and the “feeling”. Basically, I thought I would step into my skis and take a run or two before I get back to my old self being able to have my way with whatever resort I was at or mountain I had climbed so long as I paid my respects to spatial awareness, inanimate objects, and avalanches. After 15 years of dedication, I thought I had earned as much.

I clicked into my skis after getting my, uhhh, square microchip device that was going to be my lift ticket and took my first kick in 6 years towards the ski lift. I knew after that first kick, a mere couple of feet that I suddenly had become what is known in the inner sanctum of ski bums as.. a beater! I suck at skiing, bad!

I thought this was like riding a bike, you never forget how to do it. I even severely underestimated the atrophy of my inner core muscles used for balance; I found myself driving from the backseat many times that day; I even felt out of control pointing my skis straight down the fall line of a groomer which used to be my comfort position after a long burner down a mogul run.

At first I despised skiing, tried to blame my ill fitting boots or the tail edges that the ski techs had not beveled off like a good ski tech should do. In the end, I knew I have become the mountains bitch.. the scum of the ski resort.. a beater. Luckily, I retained my knowledge of technique so I was able to help teach my wife since she has been a beater for life as well as reteach myself. I did start to feel much better as I took more runs, but I still think I would be counting in seasons, the amount of time it would take to get back to were I left off if I went back to skiing about 4-5 times a week. Good thing I found traveling and photography I guess! Maybe when we move to Germany we will be close enough to a resort to get back into it. I have about 2 years for the knowledge that I am a beater to set in before that time. /end rant.

Diversion

On our way back from Jigokudani Yaen-Koen, we decided to take the Chuo Expressway on our way back to Tokyo to see some different scenery that we have never seen before. We stopped at the famous Matsumoto Castle in the Nagano prefecture. The castle was built in 1504 and while most of the castle was demolished and then rebuilt, it is still quite fascinating to walk through and admire the history. Although you cannot tell, the mountains in the background are extremely amazing and very jagged looking; something I never knew Japan had prior to moving here. We will definitely be exploring this area some more in the summer time.

Yudanaka Ryokan

We have been living in Japan for almost 2 years and finally we decided to stay in a Japanese ryokan for the first time since we have been here. It was actually located up at the monkey park we had visited a few weeks ago up at Jigokudani Yaen-Koen. Yudanaka ryokan had an extremely friendly staff and some pretty good meals that came with the room. During the day time there were monkeys sunning themselves on the roof right outside our window.

The outdoor, shared monkey/human onsen left red high mark rings on your skin because the water was scalding hot, but it sure did melt away my stress along with some of the top layer of my skin! I actually really like sleeping on a small pad directly on top of the tatami mats, but I was awaken about 10 times in the middle of the night because the monkeys seemed to be jumping around on the rooftop outside our window. Hey, I am not complaining!

And here is a shot Amber took of our dinner that was prepared for us right before we made a mess. You know, I just cannot seem to pick up the fine art of those extra large sized chopsticks for some reason. Anyways, the ryokan is a little old, yet it was quite charming. The friendly staff and the monkey neighbors definitely make this a place I can recommend checking out if you are visiting the park.

The Quiver

I have come across a few people on Flickr who shoot a lot of abstract work which surprisingly piqued my interest in it. I didn’t realize it until I went through a few streams full of great examples of abstract photography, but I think I could really get into this. I guess I am interested in most styles of photography, so why not practice this when I get a chance to add another style to my quiver of mediocrity?

I have to quick throw this little tidbit about a Firefox add-on I found called Firebug. I have no HTML or CSS skills. I am allowed to edit my CSS for my free WordPress account and it was very time consuming trying to make a barely acceptable theme for my version, which was an atrocity.

This program lets you view the HTML and CSS of any website with a simple right click. You can then change any values and see the results real time after making the change. It helped me get my blog to look like something I actually don’t mind in a very short amount of time. Anyone wanting to make slight modifications to their blog should check it out. Now if only I could figure out how to center my photos and text, but still give the text a left margin to start from…

For Your Information

I have never really touched the exposure blending feature in Photomatix, but I was having a difficult time getting my pictures to come out after inadvertently leaving my ISO at 800 for most of my Tokyo International Forum shots. Both shots below were 5 exposures each and blended together using Photomatix.

All of my correctly exposed shots were full of noise and the high and low exposures could not be tamed without yet introducing yet more of the same noise I was trying to avoid in the first place. Exposure blending went in there and kick its ass. I promise to post another location next time!

Trifecta

Sigma 10-20mm lens. Tripod. Tokyo International Forum. I had walked past it once before, the glare must have been veiling this land of joy that was inside. Today me and wifey decided to take a visit after seeing a lot of amazing photos on Flickr. No entry fee, tripods allowed, and almost completely desolate on the upper-most floor.

While Amber was using the tripod for a few moments, I slipped into the 50mm f1.8 and dialed up the ISO to 800 to fire off some hand held shots. I made the heathenish mistake of forgetting to dial my ISO back down to 100 once I had my tripod in hand once again. I almost have to HDR some of my shots just to keep the noise at bay. I guess I will just have to go back, 4 or 5 times.. at least!

Even the outside has got a wealth of photographic potential. I highly recommend a visit to the Tokyo International Forum. Absolutely stunning architecture!