Cute

My friend Sudhakar's daughters Pragyna and Samanvitha.







Samanvitha the laughing machine :

Darkness to Light

[Tamron 90 mm macro f/14 , 3 secs , ISO 400]

Asatoma Sadgamaya
Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya
Mrityorma Amritamgamaya

Check out: Sameer started C-blogging at Random Sketches, and don't miss his bird flu cartoon its quite amusing.

Tateshina : a refreshing spot

Lake Tateshina,on a cloudy Sunday afternoon, June 11th 2005. Its one of those lovely weekend getaway spots, opposite to the lake is an Indian Vegetarian Restaurant "Nataraj", probably the only veg restaurant I ever heard of todate in Japan.

Lunar ecstasy continues..

2005,SEPTEMBER,16th


2005,SEPTEMBER,18th


Guess 18th was a full moon day. Both the pictures are 100% crop, shot with

Camera : D70
Lens : 70-200mm F2.8 + TC 2x.


HBD : Blog-san.

17th ,September 2005 this blog incremented its count to 1.
Better late than never; belated birthday wishes.

Lunar ecstasy !!

Image as recorded on 9th September 2005, 17:26 hrs JST.

Its been a while I looked at the moon. Last time when I shot him with the 70-200mm VR lens, I felt the need of a 400mm, so finally I bought the 2x teleconvertor that I promised my self. As expected the teleconvertor softened the image considerably.

Sharpening and applying a slight S curve in Nikon Capture revealed some more detail as under.

Camera : D70
Lens : 70-200mm VR f2.8 + 2x Teleconvertor (ie @ 400mm)
Aperture : f5.6
Shutter : 1/125 Sec.

Ganesh Chaturthi 2005

For the past 2 years I was lucky to have a Ganesh Chaturthi day concur with a National Holiday or a weekend out in Japan. But this year it was a weekday and above all its a peak time at office. Virtually paralyzing me on many fronts.

Ganesh pooja 2005, Hirooka, Nagano-ken, Japan.

For the past 30 days I was working 15/6 week which I really hate to do so. Hopefully from this week onwards I will be back to my 8/5 week.

Hope you all had a great festival time and wish you all the best for the year ahead.

Cricket in Japan

Mr Stamina, Deepu with eyes on the ball.

I was never good at it, nor nostalgic about the Indian national obsession "Cricket", but I just loved watching the sport through my childhood and teens. Lack of physical activity and the mudane lifestyle , resulted in me prodding Sajithi to get the basic cricket kit on way back from India.

So finally from last weekend we started playing cricket. Its been around 5 years for most of them since they played some decent cricket, which resulted in some limping the whole of next week.

Sanjay playing Mahesh

Oshige-san and Imai Hiroki-san started joining us for every weekend. It will be a while for them to give up their baseball style of cricket. Over all its a healthy number who are turning up every weekend. Unlike in India were we can barge into any open field to play the sport, here we need to book the ground and ofcourse a token amount of 2000Yen per session.

Sanjay monkeying with the bat.

Info bits : Japan has a Cricket Associate, JCA recognised by the ICC., which comprises of players from all cricket playing nations.

Rain crashes Matsumoto Bon Bon

松本　ぼんぼん

[A*, 86mm, 1/125s, f/2.8 ]

This being the third consecutive year that I been attending the Matsumoto Bon Bon festival. Matsumoto is a city in Japan where I reside. Bon Bon is more like a street carnival, people from different institutes and offices form groups and dance to the tune of "Bon Bon Matsumoto, Matsumoto Bon Bon....". It takes place on the first saturday of August every year. The dance parade starts at around 5:30PM and goes upto 10:00PM. Its a 6 kilometer stretch that runs through all the main streets of this small city. This year around 295 groups too part.

I, Anand and venkatesha logged into the city at 3:00PM, we loitered around coffee cafe, books shop and the castle till 5:15PM, the weather wasnt promising, it started to drizzle. The festival was kicked off as scheduled. I was all set to have a field day and it was a pleasant start. A small kid playing with soap bubbles was quite an enchanting sight. I was almost walking away from the soap bubbles scene when two teenagers stopped by and posed, back home when I was reviewing the snaps I was delighted to notice the fans imprinted with the caption "Matsumoto Bon Bon".

[A*, 200mm, 1/160s, f/2.8 ]

[A*, 120mm, 1/40s, f/5.6 ]

For a moment it looked like the rain almost subsided. I walked up and down the street trying to get some candid potrait shots.

[A*, 155mm, 1/50s, f/4.0 ,cropped : left]

[A*, 110mm, 1/125s, f/3.5 ]

Ladies dressed in yukata ( Japanese summer cotton kimono ).

[A*, 78mm, 1/60s, f/3.5, Flash ON ]

All of a sudden the light faded and I had to switch on the flash. Not adept at setting up the SB-600, I took the leeway by flipping the built in wide flash adpater and use it as a fill fash. Above shot is that of a group of kids dressed in hawaiian outfit. The moment the girl realized that I was shooting her she stopped dancing and posed for the shot. "Arigato akachan".

[A*, 120mm, 1/60s, f/3.5, Flash ON ]

I was scanning for the ladies in kimono, and caught sight of them just before the rain took its toll.

[A*, 200mm, 1/60s, f/3.5, Flash ON ]

[A*, 70mm, 1/60s, f/3.5 , Flash ON ]

The lady wrapped her kimono in a polythene to protect it from the rain. A few moments after this shot a heavy downpour brought a premature end to the 2005 Bon Bon.

Camera: D70 Nikon
Lens: 70-200 mm VR Nikkor f2.8 G
Filter: None
Tripod: NO
Flash : SB600
A*: Aperture Priority

Ontake San: The trek

Hike date 23rd and 24th July 2005.

Ontake Mountain (3067 meters). 35.53°N/137.28°E, Japan.
Active Valcano, Last erupted 1979.

6:49AM : Took the train from Hirooka Station, Sanjay joined me at Shiojiri.
7:37AM : Reached Kiso-Fukushima.
7:50AM : Took a Bus to Ontake Sancho
9:20AM : Reached Ontake Sancho

9:30AM : Started trekking

Ontake San happens to be a very holy mountain, one can find pilgrims dressed in white climbing the mountain.

9:45AM : After trekking for 15 minutes I bumped into a group of piligrims who were offering their prayers, only to realize that I hit a dead end. We took the wrong trail, walked downhill and reached the parking area.

10:00AM : It was pretty cloudy to figure out where the mountain stands. Now I bid farewell to my intuitive abilities and used the little left over commonsense to figureout a map and head straight.

The trail was quite wide and flat for the initial 30 miutes of the climb. Latter it got narrow, rocky and steep.
Some how my stamina sounded all time low. I was resting every 10-15 minutes. The climb to the peak was suppose to take between 2.5 to 3.5 hours. Sanjay was oozing with energy and soon I lost sight of him. I started trekking at my own phase.

1:10PM : It was quite an ordeal when I reached the 2937 meter mark where the first mountain hut stands. I rested for a while and started my way up, still Sanjay was not in line of sight.

1:40PM : Now it turned out to be much steeper and I dropped the plan of heading any further. I squatted on the rocks, to find a gentleman who cushioned himself to slumber. Shortly I met Sanjay who already made it to the peak, I was having some food when a wave of sulphur smell swept, thats when I took notice of the hissing geysers.

2:10PM : I was a dead man walking when I reached the shrine. I was pleasantly surprised to find a sparrow strutting at that altitude.

2:30PM : We planned to climb down and reach the base to take the last bus, we met a lady who works in the mountain hut who spoke decent english and she visited India some 10 yrs back to trek the Himalayas. She advised us that it would be rather difficult to make it to the base in time for the last bus. But we decided to take our chances.

2:45PM: A 15 minute walk downhill and I was feeling dizzy and took the final call of hanging out at the hut for the night.

3:15PM: We reached the mountain hut and logged in. It was costing some ~7000Yen per night including dinner and breakfast. Sanjay and myself being vegetarians, we had to bargain for some veg-stuff.

4:30PM: It was the usual Japanese dinner time, but we deferred ours for 7:00PM and I took a shot nap.

6:40PM: I had severe convolutions and an upchuck bettered me for the rest of the day.

7:00PM: I had a paltry dinner and got into bed by 8:00PM. We were sharing the floor with some 50 pilgrims and trekkers.

Next Day

4:20AM: A slight commotion woke me up, to realize that they are up to watch the early morning sunrise from the top.

4:45AM: Soon I grabbed my camera and waded out of the hut. It was pretty cold. Shot some candid shots of the Sunrise for Ontake-san.

5:30AM: The morning breakfast got some life into me.

6:30AM: We had a posed in for some shots and started hiking down. At 7:15AM I took the first break and by 8:00AM we were at the bus terminal.

8:25AM: The bus was scheduled to arrive at 9:20AM so I strolled around the adjacent Tanohara National Park. Groups of Nature photographers wandered around.

10:50AM: We were at Kiso Fukushima station and took the 11:28AM train to Shiojiri. Slightly after Noon I was home.

Over all it was an experience unique in its own way.

Ontake San: Sunrise

Hike date 23rd and 24th July 2005.

Ontake Mountain (3067 meters).
35.53°N/137.28°E, Japan.
Active Valcano, Last erupted 1979.



[A*, 48mm, 1/250s, f/6.3, 4:49AM ]


[A*, 35mm, 1/100s, f/8.0, 4:52AM ]

[A*, 18mm, 1/500s, f/8.0,, 5:01 AM ]

[A*, 70mm, 1/640s, f/8.0, 5:14AM ]


[A*, 18mm, 1/1250s, f/8.0, 5:15 AM ]

Camera: D70 Nikon
Lens: 18-70mm DX Nikkor
Filter: None
Tripod: NO
A*: Aperture Priority

Weekend Getaway : Oyashirazu

Sea Of Japan

Million

I sculpted the gigantic sea turtle "Million" with the vision that these turtles symbolize the civilization of the Japan Sea and that they have lived for ten thousand years. The Sphere on the right hand side expresses this eternal time.With thanks for the merciful sea.

Kiyoshi Awazu.

Guess Me

[D70,Tamron macro f2.8 90mm @ F4.5, 1/4 sec]

It was one of those days when I was shooting macro. Shot a flower and was reviewing it on the camera LCD when this pleasant blur turned up, didnt have a clue when this crept in.

The last 2 weekends I locked myself at home. The summer heat is going out of bounds. The only leeway that the summer gives is to tolerate it and hike those aweing mountain peaks. With great deal of planning I should be able to hike atleast 4 peaks this summer.

May the force be with me.

Road Trip : Fuji Parikrama

Courtesy : http://www.jnto.go.jp

In the August of 2003, I trekked Mt. Fuji with a goal of watching the early morning sun and then make a full circle of the crater on the top, neither of this was possible on account of a typhoon, call it bad timing. But last sunday I joined Bharat and Eisha in completing the "Fuji Parikrama" if not at the summit.

We set out at 8:00 AM on the chou expressway. It was a bright sunny day. After an hours drive we rested at Futaba Parking area , and dallyed at the fuji view point. The plan of the day was to exit the expressway at Fuji-yoshida, drive down to Fuji Safari park via Lake Yamanaka, then move onto Shiraito Falls and take the route 139 and hit the expressway.

FUJI SAFARI REVISITED

[AP*, f4.5, 1/200, 200mm ], Handheld VR On.

It was around 11:00AM and we were at Fuji Safari Park as planned. This being my second visit in under 7days was a bit reluctant to go on a shooting spree. Bharat was almost petrified at the wheel when a lioness started strolling around the car.

[AP*, f5, 1/250, 22mm ], Handheld.

This lioness on the tree caught my attention as I was in perfect position to get the best of what I could. This would be my first reference of calling the big fellow "cute" and hopefully the last. After spending a couple of hours at the park we traced our way to my destination of the day the Shiraito Waterfalls. The drive to the falls was just the best of all times. It was like driving an alpine course on the Grand Turismo 4 (sony playstation).

SHIRAITO WATERFALLS / SHIRAITONOTAKI

[SP*, f16, 1/3, 18mm ], on tripod, crop in height.

At the very sight of the falls one feels that they are rightly named as "white thread falls". The falls measured 200meters in width and 20 meters in height. I started on my assignment of shooting the falls. Since we had a plan of spending a good amount of time at the falls, I spent a great deal of time correcting some imprefections I got used to.

[SP*, f11, 1/25, 31mm ],on tripod

Probably this is my first instance of using the tripod to the best. The slightly overcast conditions helped me to a great extent. Shooting the images in raw always has the down side of spending loads of time to rework, since I am still a longway away from Photoshop and/or writing automating scripts. On the lighter side along with great felxibility comes great pain.

[SP*, f9, 1/8, 18mm ], on tripod, circular polarizer

Once done with the basic shooting I experimented with the polarizer, which yeilded some acceptable results.

[SP*, f16, 1/3, 18mm ],on tripod.

There were a couple of gold fish that were trying to swim upstream. Wondered for a while why they need to do so. With little interest in further researching on that subject, I tried to capture them, the end result being the shot here under.

[SP*, f7.1, 1/10, 18mm ], on tripod, circular polarizer.

At around 3:00PM we hit the road. On the way we visited the Fugaku Lava cave, the temperature in this cave is ZERO Degrees centigrade even in peak summer. One can find 15 feet long ICE stalagmites resembling the Amarnath ice lingam.

We were almost nearing the expressway when we got a good glimpse of the Mt Fuji which was masked by clouds all day long. By 6:00PM we were done and a successful Fuji Parikrama came to an end.

Camera : Nikon D70
Lens : Nikkor 18-70mm DX

Fuji Safari Park

[AP*, f2.8, 1/1250, 200m ]

Yesterday I made it to the Fuji safari park along with Mahesh, Amit and Prasad Joshi. This park is somewhat unique for the very reason that it allows you enter in your own car to the proximity of the carnivores. It was a cloudy day and in the evening we were greeted by some rain. The safari park is situated at the foot of Mt Fuji. Once again clouds enveloped fuji-san and I was having a walk in the clouds all the way.

[AP*, f5.0, 1/125, 200m ]

The first section happens to be that of the bears, a bear entered the water and started having some fun. I just swung into action, started shooting, just when I am done I realized that I got two things wrong, the first was that I was shooting in JPEG only mode rather than RAW and secondly it was in Aperture Priority mode than the desired Shutter priority mode for such fast action. Of all the above image looked a bit acceptable.

[AP*, f2.8, 1/400, 160m ]

It was half past noon and guess the tigers were done with their lunch, hardly could find a tiger in the vicinity. At the very exit was this tiger.

[AP*, f2.8, 1/1600, 116m ]

There seemed to be a population explosion in the lions camp. The lioness out numbered the lions as usual. This very lioness/cub turned to be the animal of the day for me. I was staring right into my eyes, I was 10/15 feet from it when I took these shots.

[AP*, f2.8, 1/250, 200mm ]

Initially I used to wonder how come goats and pigs take center stage in a zoo/safari, well I dont have an answer let me put it this way "This is Japan, sometimes expect the unexpected". Not pretty sure but I presume this is a mountain goat.

[AP*, f2.8, 1/1600, 200mm ]

Some of you might be wondering how come safari in Japan. Well once a Japanese industrialist been to an african safari near Mt Kilimanjaro and was so pleased with it that he set up one right at the foot of Mt Fuji in 1980.

[AP*, f6.3, 1/250, 200mm ]




[AP*, f6.3, 1/250, 200mm ]

I was very thankful to Mr. Lion for posing upright. This being my first shoot of the wild though not in the wild, was quite an experience. Loads of lessons learnt. Guess every serious photographer should have a short checklist stuck right in his mind and breeze through it before the click. That sure will make a difference between a perfect shot and a near perfect shot.

[AP*, f2.8, 1/200, 200mm ]

This rihno seemed so bogged by it weight or by the unknown factor that it hardly lifted its head. Some how I found this snap very interesting.

[AP*, f2.8, 1/2000, 95mm ]



[AP*, f2.8, 1/800, 70mm ]

Locked with a medium telephoto lens , with the wide angle lens in the trunk and no option to get out of the car, left me to squeeze this to the best. The quadruped walk was the most graceful I seen in its class.

[AP*, f2.8, 1/1000, 200mm ]

This deer was quite far away and there was a fencing wire running at its nose level. I just wondered if this lens can blur that line to a desired extent and I guess it did a decent job.

[AP*, f6.3, 1/100, 190mm ]

I never liked cropping the images and this is one time I havent cropped on any of the images.

So over all its been a wonderful day with the camera but still its a long way for the perfect shot and mastering the art.

Camera : Nikon D70
Lens : Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR
Tripod : No tripod, all handheld.

*AP : Aperture Priority Mode