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Category Archives: photos
Lantern Festival in Hiroshima
For the Obon summer vacations I went to see my wife's family in Hiroshima. Although I've been there 4 or 5 times before, it was the first time that my visit coincided with the anniversary of the atomic bomb blast on August 6th and the 灯籠流し — lantern festival. To commemorate the victims, we float tens of thousands of lanterns representing the dead's souls on the river in front of the 原爆ドーム — the A-bomb dome.
Despite buying a nice Manfrotto tripod for the occasion, I'm a bit disappointed with my photos of the event... The conditions were not optimal, after queuing up for more than an hour to launch our lanterns on the river, I started shooting. But the unbearable heat (the high riverbanks blocking any wind and the hundreds of people crowding the launchpad and the bridge were not helping) as well as my wife and her friends clamoring for retreat towards a cold beer and plenty of wine at a nearby restaurants meant I took a mere 20 quick shots and left with my shirt completely soaked.
Sunset over Fujisan
Photos I took in the past hour from my balcony as the sun is setting to the left of Mount Fuji.
White-capped Fujisan after the typhoon
Took this photo with my iPhone this morning after the 20th typhoon of the season cleared away.
Last time I saw it, there was no snow. Now it's all white. See another beautiful photo made this morning from much closer.
I will try to update this post tonight with some photos I took with my DSLR in between brushing my teeth and putting my pants on – always in a rush in the mornings...
Cat Street matsuri
Taken with my iPhone on Cat Street, the street that connects Shibuya to Omotesando. I'm pretty impressed by the picture quality of my iPhone, I should take more photos with it...
New shoes
Bought new shoes during the Silver week vacations. Yeah, I'm an Onitsuka addict.
Funny thing is all the people I saw, without exception, in the Onitsuka Tiger shop browsing for shoes were already wearing Onitsuka kicks. I guess I'm not the only one who's addicted...
Fujisan from my window
A bit more than 3 months after moving in, my first glimpse of 富士山 from my living room window.
View from my new place
Last night was the first clear sky sunset I could catch since we moved in the new apartment in Ikebukuro. 梅雨 (the rainy season - literally rain like plums) is not over yet so it was a lucky day.
I can't wait until the typhoon season - after a typhoon, the skies are like washed from any cloud or fog - when I should be able to see the Fujisan clearly from my window.
Chinese food is best in Chinatown
In a previous post I was talking about driving all the way to 横浜の中華街 for a chinese lunch. Now I've finally gotten around to processing the pictures in Aperture and uploading them to flickr.
Aperture Experiments – monochrome
Playing around with Aperture, I'm slowly getting the hang of RAW treatment workflow after each day of shooting. A little bit of contrast here, adjusting the temperature there, a tad of vibrancy over here... What used to take me hours is now done in 10min thanks to the great "lift and stamp" tool.
But one thing I still can't get a hang of is monchrome conversion... This is a photo I took yesterday from the 27th floor of the Shinjuku L Tower (the Nikon Plaza showroom). From it, I made a version with each pre-defined setting of Aperture:
Default Monochrome - R30% G59% B11%
Karting in Tokyo
Last Tuesday I went karting with some friends in Tokyo, around 北千住. The place is called City Kart, you can rent the course for ¥36.000/hour on weekdays with 5 200cc karts which I think is a pretty awesome pricetag considering the location.
It is right next to the 京成関屋 train station or 10min walk from 北千住. More photos in the flickr set.
Skull and Ice
Random shots I took lately while walking around Tokyo on the weekend with my trusty Nikon D60 50mm f/1.4.
A skull chariot sculpture in Marunouchi.
An abandoned ice-cream stand-sign in Koenji.
Driving in Tokyo
A friend of mine received his new car last weekend and we went driving around town all saturday night and sunday afternoon.
Fun thing to do with a car in Tokyo: drive to Yokohama's 中華街 to eat chinese food for lunch a Sunday afternoon after partying.
It really got me into thinking I need to get off my lazy ass and finally get my license. I never bothered getting it while a student living in Paris and now that I'm 27 years old living in Japan, I realize my mistake.
So I've been looking at driving schools around my place and found a nice one not to far. Prices are ¥291.000 for manual, ¥278.000 for automatic. I should have no problem taking the driving courses and test in Japanese and the written test is available in English in Saitama prefecture, but studying for the written test in Japanese might be a bit out of my league.
I'm going to see with the school if they can waiver the fees for the non-driving classes and let me study at home on my own with whatever english materials I can find.
Internet is almost void of any accounts of foreigners passing their driving license from scratch in Japan so I have no real idea of what I'm in for...
Daddy’s gift
Yesterday we received a Christmas present / New Year's gift from 愛子's father.
Around a Kg of 和牛 - Japanese beef from Yamanashi prefecture. If you're thinking "meh, it's just meat...", stop right there, retail price must be over ¥30.000 (almost 300€).
Straight in the frying pan with some delicious garlic. Look at those beautiful nervings of fat permeating through the meat... *drool*
And a nice bottle of wine to complement the meal. You can't eat meat like this with any little cheap bordeaux from the supermarket downstairs so we picked this up at Isetan Shinjuku.
All set (except the forks and knives, forgot to put them in before the photo...), thanks dad! The taste was incredible and you barely need to chew, it almost melts on your tongue.
PS: so that my parents don't get jealous, I also received a huge pack full of foie gras, paté, rillettes, cassoulet, cuisses de canard confites from them and will post about it when I will eat it.
Christmas dinner
Christmas dinner at home after a horrible day at work.
