Kyoto (Japan)

Kyoto! Japan's Ancient Capital! Its certainly a sight! Before Tokyo (Previously named Edo) Became the modern capital of Japan, Kyoto was the government center of Japan. And it doesnt dissapoint. Graciously restored/mantained Kyoto continues to preserve much of its ancient heritage with many of the streets and houses unchanged since the days of the Tokugawa Era (If I'm not mistaken) or earlier! Going thru the streets one can easily Imagine them several hundreds of years ago with Samurai and Geiko/Geisha roaming the streets (Of which Geiko & Geisha still do!). Alas spending only one night in the old district in an ancient ryokan was little more than a tease of what old Kyoto had to offer photographically as the rest of our trip was spent on the more modern side near the Train Station. Below are pictures from Kyoto and our the Bullet train stations, closing my Japan posts as the rest of the images have been featured or mentioned in previous posts.














One of the things that I was particularly happy about during this trip was that I picked up an eye for little details. Shooting with a Mentor and many other experienced photographers was certainly an experience I would like to repeat as I believe my creative insight and photographic eye improved tenfold. A trend which I have noticed improving since my Japan Trip.

Nara (Japan)

Nara was another of my fave locations to shoot during my trip to Japan (although in all honesty I dont think there was a single thing that wasnt my fave to shoot! lol)

Another of Japan's glorious traditional and ancient temples, Nara was particularly special because of the roaming Deer! (and the Giant Budha statue inside the temple). The young deer were easily found roaming around the temple grounds and about as afraid of humans as an average American afraid of a burger! They had no qualms in approaching visitors, and some even cheeky enough to poke around in pockets for anything edible. A large reason for this is that the temple allows and even encourages the feeding of these young fawn by selling panckakes on which they feast on. With an ample and easily accessible supply of food these little animals have little to fear, and even less to want outside the temple grounds.


They are however incredibly bad models as getting them to stay still AND look where you wanted them too was a difficult task indeed! I was able to help my mentor get an able image with one of the deer, however it was rather less responsive when I got behind the lens. Anywais enough yabbering. Enjoy!



The Intricate Details of the Temple were Incredible!



As I mentioned the deer were more than happy to come and say Hi!



Inside the temple I was lucky enough to see this woman being photographed by her husband. however whilst he might have been attempting to get her lit with his flash, I was more interested in the sillouette she was creating



This is one of my fave images of the trip! This father was teaching his child to salute...just like the giant Budha!



Although this isnt the giant budha of the temple this little one in children's clothing was quite amusing ( I was unfortunately unable to get a clear Image of the giant one in the temple)



The Temple



Schoolchildren comming to visit the temple (I love the uniforms!)



In Japan before entering sacred grounds its customary to was your hands and mouth with these as a sign of cleansing.

The Golden Pavilion, Japan (Roukon-Ji)

The Rokuon - ji Temple was originally built as a villa by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, who had taken possession of a mountain villa of Saionji Temple in 1397. It was converted into a temple after Yoshimitsu's death. Officially named Rokuonji Temple, this temple is famous both in Japan and abroad as a symbol of Kitayama culture. The Kinkaku, or "Golden Pavilion," was built as the Shariden. Covered with gold, the image of the pavilion, which stands at the edge of Kyokochi pond, is reflected in the water. Major repair work performed in 1987 has further enhanced its brilliance.


it was a real Joy to shoot this magnificent temple. Kept in these serene grounds its certainly a breathtaking sight, enough to even compete with the original golden temple in India.


Enjoy the photos.

P.S If anyone can tell me how I can mantain my colours during export it would be much appreciate it. I've been told that the best formula is to shoot in AdobeRGB (since it gives me the most flexibility for print and web), and then in Lighroom during export to export to sRGB which will mantain my colours but making them websafe. I've noticed that they become slightly washed out when I upload them onto flickr. If anyone could help me remedy this it would be much appreciated

More Japan

Hey Guys, so these Images have been WELL overdue, I'm tempted to just dump them all on Flickr right now, but they are amongst the best I've shot all year and it would seem a pity for some of them to just get lost or never seen simply because of an overload dump, so I'm going to try to do 30 a day or so. I'm very close to having uploaded all my remaining archived Images for 2009, hopefully in time for years end, they will all be up, as for 2010, I'm looking to start a new page in my life as a photographer. I'm hoping by then I will have completed my Wordpress jump. Aditionally I'm hoping to close my current Lightroom catalog in hopes of opening a new one, as the current one holds 3 years of Images and is beggining to slow down, considerably. Anywho, here are some of the Japan Images from the latest batch, as usual you can see the whole set here.

Enjoy

New Site on the way!

For those of you who might have recently logged on to my main site, sbalaniphotography.com may have noticed a bit of a makeover has occurred recently. Now I warn you the site is only 90% Finished. It should be free of bugs and quirks, the only thing missing is my Texts which continue to remain in draft format. Aditionally my quest to rid myself of my Canon 40D in exchange for true flash simpleness remains at a standstill, with listings beeing placed on AyosDitto, Ebay & Facebook marketplace...its Seems I may have to think about selling the pieces seperately....ugh effort, but what to do, my lack of shooting is starting to get horribly annoying.

Some people have asked me what I think about the new 7D and Canon's first step towards flash goodness. Hmm for some reason I'm not particularly convinced about the workings of this, as what makes Nikon beatifull is in adition to its flash trigger system is also its flashes, the actual light bursting, blinding devices coupled wth TTL goodness. After having so recently released the 580EXII are they really going to bring out a MK III so soon flagshipping a new flash system? I highly doubt it, and with Nikon having caught up in terms of lens quality with their Nikkor brand it seems just silly for me not to switch over to Nikon. Although I have gotten attached to my lenses & Camera, I dont think their worth the headaches.

As for today's Images I'll be uploading a batch I took from last week when I was down at Mall of Asia, shooting around Manila bay (Got some hopefully nice HDR's) aswell as some very late Japan Images from my backlog so Enjoy!

And as usual, the full batch of photo's can be accessed directly in Flickr.

Usual 4am...

And so once again I seem to find myself awakened by unbearable sleeping conditions, and thus after finally having given up on a descent nights sleep I find myself confoundly distracted by by those dangerous things called thoughts, and the lovely little technological wonder, twitter. I also felt if i had the strenght to type i might aswell blog my latest set of Japan Images. They've been on flickr for a while so I'm sure some of you have seen them. But for the benefit of those not directly suscribed to my flickr stream here be the latest images for you all to enjoy!

Japan Pictures

So, after various requests for more Japan Pictures, and having had to delay the processing of them to pump the MCM pics out for downloading, but now I'm back, and with another deadline for the Japan pics! 18th of the month, since its the last day to submit images for the Japan trip competition done by the Mentor series :).

As part of the program I also get to put 15 of my images in a combined book, printed by MPIX, containing images from all of us! so here they are!