The eye of the beholder

So my Christmas present this year was 5 private photography lessons, with a photographer I have worked with on various projects over the years.

The first lesson covered the basics of shooting in manual mode - aperture, exposure, camera shake and the like. For the homework, I needed to show examples of different shutter speeds and depths of field. So around the house I went, looking for ways to take the required photos.

I understood these photos to be exercises - a way of showing I'd understood the concepts. So I was a little unsettled to have them judged on their merit as a photo. And very surprised at how the photographer saw some of them.

This one for instance:

I was actually quite pleased with this. I got the required depth of field (without any zoom - not so easy with my lens) and I thought it wasn't too bad as a photo.

Yeah, well, technically it's fine... but meh. 

OKaaaayy.

Now this is a powerful photo.

Huh? For me this was a bit of a desperation shot - I needed 5 photos with a large depth of field and was really struggling to find even passably interesting things to photograph inside (it was cold out). I see this as technically OK but otherwise very meh.

I love this one! All those lines and then that one bit of mess coming out of the basket. It's great!

I did not compose this at all. I did like Quincy cut by the glass, but it was even more of a desperation shot than the one above.

This is really great! It's timeless! It says, I want to be a kid and jump!

I thought I'd completely failed this one. I was meant to pan on a moving object so that it would be sharp and the background blurred. But it was nearly dark, so I couldn't get a fast enough shutter speed to prevent Lukan blurring too.

But the biggest surprise was this one:

I had to show examples of camera shake - so I used the ones where I'd gotten the shutter speed too slow.

Wow, this is incredible powerful!

Um, it is? Surely it's just blurry flowers?

This week's homework is portraits. I'm interested to see what he says of them!

Japan Day 13-14

Rather day-by-day, I'm going to put the remainder of our time in Tokyo - and Japan - in one last post.

Lukan was desperate - DESPERATE - to go to the Pokemon Center, but we heard from Yumi that it was just a big shop. So we figured the shop at Tokyo Station would suffice.

He wanted to buy a Pokemon. We could only see the balls that they came in, not the Pokemon itself, so he picked one out. The photo above was taken just after the purchase, before opening the ball... which, it turned out, contained a magnet. There was much sorrow and wailing.

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Téo was very happy to go to the shinkansen (bullet train) station. I think he could have stayed there all day, watching the trains come and go.

We meanly dragged him away - although he still got to see a lot of trains.

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There were quite a few places we wanted to show to the kids. One was Akihabara Electric City, where one goes to buy electronics.

Electric head massagers. 

French maids - not electronic, but they do offer massages. More here if you are interested.

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Meiji Shrine:

 Caskets of sake given as offerings.

These girls wanted a photo with the kids, We said that they needed to pay, but they didn't get the joke.

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Harajuku:

We had wanted to see the dressed-up kids on the bridge between Harajuku and the Meiji Shrine, but there were none! There were still costumed people elsewhere however.

Harajuku is the home of the most-looked-forward-to place of the entire trip, by the kids at least: a giant toy store! Much birthday and pocket money was spent.

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Odaiba:

We went to Odaiba with Yumi and Daiki. For the kids, the Legoland Disocvery Center was the best part.

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We were taken out to dinner by Akie, C's homestay mother from when he first moved to Japan. She took us to a restaurant famous for fugu - a pufferfish that can be lethally poisonous if not prepared properly.

It was delicious. And happily, not lethal.

The restaurant is owned by an ex-sumo player - who was there! He asked the kids if they knew any Japanese... despite having been coached by Shabolz to say cute bum in response, the kids claimed not to know a word.

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On the last night we went out with Yumi, Satoshi and Daiki.

And then the next morning we had to get up early, to go to the airport. The kids had their last edamame and chips meal (yes, for breakfast!)...

... and then it was time to go.

A wonderful, wonderful holiday!

Téo's was a good one too this year.

Squirrelly

Once upon a time, the kids were wanting. I want a Lego Star Wars space ship. I want a drink. I want another piece of cake. I want to go now. I want, I want, I WANT!

"I would like..." I kept correcting them, but to no avail. They kept on wanting. So then, à la Veruca Salt, every time they said they wanted something, I replied that I wanted a squirrel.

I want a scooter for my birthday.

Yeah? I want a squirrel.

I want an ice cream.

That's nice. I want a squirrel.

They hated this. H-A-T-E-D it. But it worked! There were a few tears and stomps and sulks, but in a very short time, they stopped wanting! I was very pleased with myself.

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Earlier this year, Lukan kept asking us whether we liked him. All. The. Friggen. Time.

Mummy?

Yes Lukan?

Do you like me?

5 min later: Mummy, I have a question. Do you like me?

5 min later: Papa, do you like me? 

It drove C and me insane. It didn't matter if we said we did like him, he kept on asking. It didn't help either when we refused to answer any more.

Come on, just tell me, do you like me? Why won't you tell me? It's one little question! Do you like me? If you answer I won't ask any more, I promise. Do you like me?

Needless to say, the promise was broken. Repeatedly.

After a couple of months, I tried a new response.

Mummy, do you like me?

I like squirrels.

At first he took it quite well.

Well, I can see why you'd like squirrels, they are kind of cute, but I'm cute too so why don't you like me?

But by the end of the first day, he was getting cross. And by the second day:

Mummy, do you li... no! No! Don't answer! I didn't mean to say it!

By the third day, he wasn't asking any more. This time I was quite smugly pleased with myself.

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One day over the summer, something upset Lukan. He climbed into my lap, crying, but wouldn't tell me what the problem was. That night, when I kissed him good night, I asked if he wanted to talk about it.

Yes, he replied seriously. Actually I would. But I'm only going to tell ... a squirrel.

Touché little man, touché.

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Except:

Bwa ha ha ha ha!

He'd been so looking forward to getting his Christmas ornament this year, wondering what it would be and guessing all sort of things.

Ha!

I'm back to feeling very pleased with myself.

Japan - Day12

We had to get up early today to drive from Lake Akan to Kusshiro, where we would catch a plane to Tokyo.

This part of Hokkaido is famous for the Japanese crane, once thought extinct and now somewhat recovered. There'd been a pair around the hotel, but never when I had my camera. On the way to the airport we passed a pair right by the road... but not wanting to be accused of making us miss the flight, I didn't dare suggest stopping for a photo. Of course, we arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. D'oh.

The cranes we saw weren't doing the mating dance for which they are famous - but hey, if I'm stealing a photo it may as well be a good one.

So then there was the flight, and almost before we knew it, we were landing in Tokyo.

At first we thought this was Tokyo, but then we realised we weren't quite there yet. The sprawl, it stretches far.

We had been wondering what might have changed in the 11 years since we were last in the city... and discovered the first thing almost immediately: on the train, there were announcements in English! As well as in Chinese and Korean! Back in the day, it was only Japanese. (And actually this was something we noticed in Hokkaido - large numbers of Chinese and other Asian tourists.)

We spent quite a while at Tokyo Station looking for lockers in which to store our luggage. A very long, very hot while, lugging our suitcases and backpacks from one locker area to another around the enormous station complex, only to find all the lockers full each time. Finally we lined up for a luggage storage service ... and not too long afterwards were able to unburden ourselves.

The plan was to spend the afternoon around Asakusa, so we hopped on the metro... where Téo was enormously excited to see his first pair of white gloves.

 Bus drivers wear white gloves.

Train drivers too. Téo counted 200 white gloves in total in the 2.5 days we were in Tokyo.

After a yummy lunch of tantanmen (ramen noodles with a meat sauce - the kids were highly suspicious at first but eventually admitted it was edible), we hit the streets. I had been looking forward to coming to Asakusa for years. Years! Why? Well, those of you who knew me in Australia may remember my blue glass plates, bought from Freedom Furniture in 1994. These are still our plates. We would like something new. Something cool. Like, square Japanese plates. And! In Asakusa there is a street of shops selling restaurant supplies. We'd both bought pottery bowls there when we lived in Japan, and our dream is to get some plates to go with them.

We looked.

 And looked.

And looked. Nothing. It was all cheap stuff from China, with nothing cool at all. Plus the area was full of foreigners. It's like it's now a tourist destination. Very disappointing.

But the kids at least saw some of the sights.

Interesting architecture.

Plastic food.

The golden poo.

Next up was Sensō-ji, the huge Buddhist temple in Asakusa.

The kids really liked getting water from the dragons.

We'd seen the new Tokyo Sky Tree while walking around, so the kids were badgering us to go up it. We'd heard the queues were super long, especially to go up for sunset, but since the skies were blue (quite rare in Tokyo in summer) and we had nothing else to do anyway, we figured we'd give it a go.

The Sky Tree from Asakusa...

...and from the bottom.

Upon arriving, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the queue was only 20 min. So, up we went... and were even more more pleasantly surprised to be able to see Mt. Fuji. We hung around a bit to watch the sunset.

I like the one yellow building.

After coming back down, we returned to Tokyo station to get our luggage, then headed to the apartment building of Yumi - a friend of C's from when he lived in Japan - her husband Satoshi and their son Daiki. The building has a guest room where we could stay - it was just like a hotel room, and perfect for us. Even though it's right near the centre of Tokyo, and pretty much all high rise buildings, the area was really quiet without many cars, and had a lovely neighbourhood feel. There was even a little festival going on when we arrived.

 The festival

Walking in the quiet streets

After dropping off our luggage we walked down the street for dinner. There were lots of different restaurants to choose from - we ended up at a little yakitori place which, to our surprise, was run by a French guy.

The kids were fading by this point so after dinner it was straight to bed for them, and us not too far behind them.