Kenrokuen Fall Light Up

A factor in the scheduling of my whole Asia trip was the dates of the Kenrokuen Fall Light up. Four times a year the famous Kenrokuen garden in Kanazawa is lit up for a weekend or two to showcase the season. Admission is free during the light up, and its a great way to see the garden in a new light, so to speak.



Of course, anything worth doing in Japan is worth doing by a whole lot of people, so be ready for crowds. I was far from the only person sporting a camera and tripod, and some of the prime spots had a bit of a line form for the photo. Though without a camera its nice to come and just see the lights and not worry about trying to get that perfect photo.



Every fall these rope supports are strung on some of the trees to protect them from the heavy, wet snow that blankets the area come December.



A musician and singer was playing in the boat house and being piped all over the gardens, lending a very peaceful and traditional feel to the proceedings. Despite the large numbers of people, once you got away from the entrance, the crowd really thinned out, giving room for just exploring the darkened garden on your own.



As you can see in some of the photos, by and large the weather was very clear, and the water was literally as still as glass. It did sprinkle a tiny bit for a few minutes, but it wasn't even enough rain for me to worry about my camera.



This was far from my first trip to Kenrokuen for a light up, but every time it seems so magical, it just never gets old.

Vulcan's Forge

Growing up in Colorado, I've long been fascinated by geology. In some ways I think it ties into my love of history. After all, geology is the history of the earth, laid down in the rocks. If you can read the rocks, you can read back millions or even billions of years. While the study of history, human and Terran, is wonderful, sometimes it is nice to see history happen, to see things be made. I think that is one reason I had wanted to travel to Hawaii. The chance to see rocks that are younger than I am is a rare chance indeed!



On Halloween Megan and I flew from Honolulu to Hilo airport for a trip to Volcanoes National Park, the centerpiece of current activity on the Hawaiian Hot Spot. Interestingly enough, we were there in time to see a very interesting bit of science taking place. Volcanoes (traditionally) feed from a single magma chamber deep in the earth, and so (traditionally) erupt from one area at a time. While this eruptive vent can shift around the volcano, usually only one vent is active at any one time. At least, that was true before March of 2008. The vast caldera at the summit of Kilauea had been dormant since 1924, and the constantly spewing lava that the volcano is known for had moved to the east. Then, last March, a new vent in Halema‘uma‘u Crater (above) on the summit of Kilauea exploded. When we were there it was still erupting ash and noxious gases into the air, at the same time as vast amounts of lava flowed into the sea from another part of the volcano. Kilauea is the first volcano to erupt simultaneously from two separate vents, and you can imagine the geologists are busy little bees trying to figure it all out!



Near the summit is the Thurston Lava Tube, which was another amazing spectacle. Lava tubes are formed when erupting lava congeals on the surface of the flow, which protects and insulates the rest of the river of rock. When the eruption stops, the molten rock runs out of the worm tunnel it has created, leaving a very different sort of cave behind. Part of the Thurston tube is paved and well lit, and part of it isn't. Exploring the pitch black of unimproved tube was amazing, and a bit creepy.



Near the lava tube is Kilauea Iki crater, where in 1959 a vent nearby filled the area with a lake of lava. As the lava has cooled over the last 50 years, it has shrunk, cracking along the edges. The total lake was 400 feet deep, and by the year of my birth (1981) about half of it had solidified. It is totally safe to walk on, and in fact a trail leads around the edge of the crater, and out onto the surface of the lake.



Above the lake is the Devastated Area, where the Pu'u Pua'i vent that filled Kilauea Iki is located. The blasted landscape lives up to its name, with the area that used to be a road now covered in lava flows and cinders.



From there we drove down Chain of Craters Road, passing a plethora of recent lava flows, most from the 1970's and 80's. In fact, Chain of Craters Road used to pass out of the park along the coast, at least it did until 1986, when a huge flow covered the road.



And that is one of the things that is so fascinating about Kilauea. When I look at a piece of granite from Pikes Peak, that rock is billions of years old. But a shard of basalt from that 1986 flow was erupted in my lifetime, and that makes it much more immediate and easier to relate too. It's hard to understand the concept of a billion, but but 23 years is a number we can comprehend.



Of course, the craters, calderas, and past flows were all prologue. The real fireworks started at dusk, at the lava viewing overlook a little ways outside the park. If it is interesting to see flows that have erupted since my birth, how much better is it to see flows erupting at that very instant? The answer is "Very Interesting!" We were exceedingly lucky, Kilauea was feeling very active that day, and we had quite a show as the river of molten rock flowed into the ocean. Sometimes seawater will flow into the lava tube, and cold water and hot rock make an explosive combination!



As the sun set, we were treated to a real fireworks display put on by Mother Nature and Vulcan himself, complete with oooohing and ahhhhing from the spectators. It's almost hard to describe how I felt, except to say that I felt supremely lucky. I've seen three "active" volcanoes now, but to see an actual eruption, with lava and fountains of steam and ash, that's certainly not something you get to see every day, or even every lifetime.



It was an interesting walk back to the car, after all we were walking on uneven and sharp black rock, at night. Even with a flashlight, it wasn't easy. As we walked we could see the glow of the lava flowing further up the slopes of the volcano. The photograph is rather blurry, but it does offer a glimpse of what we saw. I promise next time I'll take my tripod!

This post was made possible by the generosity and sense of adventure of Megan, and was prepared with the armchair assistance of Roadside Geology of Hawai'i by Richard Hazlett and Donald Hyndman. If you are ever interested in the meaning behind the rocks you see, the Roadside Geology series is invaluable. I got this particular edition at the gift store in Volcanoes National Park, and it looks great on the shelf next to Roadside Geology of Colorado (I'm going to the Grand Canyon in May, so i suppose I will have to add Arizona to my collection!

Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom

Last weekend was really the official start to Spring here in Japan, or at least, here in Kanazawa. The annual explosion of cherry blossoms is widely celebrated by spreading out a tarp and drinking beer and chu-hi at one in the afternoon. That is one part of the celebration I just can't really get behind. Drinking in the afternoon is, for me, a one way ticket to an early nap, and who wants to ruin their sunny Sunday napping?



One of my students made sure to point out that traditionally the Hanami parties were about viewing the beautiful flowers, and then translating that physical beauty into haiku. I think the poetry got lost on the way to the excessive alcohol consumption.



Which doesn't mean that the general idea isn't sound. Actually, gathering friends together to chat and cavort in fine spring weather is a fantastic idea. Get people outside and enjoying the fresh air for the first time since late November. Of course, being the psycho Photo-Boy that I am I had already gone to Kanazawa Castle and Kenrokuen the day before the schools Hanami Party. Most of Kanazawa joined me there, or so it seemed. Anything worth doing in Japan is worth doing by everybody!



The Sunday of the party dawned bright and clear, a rarity in Ishikawa. We had a few interlopers tho, one of the avian kind, and a couple of crazy kids.





One of my students brought her two delightful young children to the party. She told them about me before they arrived, so upon seeing me they both rushed at me yelling, "Grant-sensei!!!" They then spent an hour running round, rolling down the hill and generally making a mess of their clothing. A great time was had by all.



I then met up with some friends and we absconded to the Mexican place for a long overdue dinner of enchiladas and tacos. After that we headed back to Kenrokuen for the night lights. Despite having hundreds of megabytes of pictures from the garden at night I brought my camera and tripod, much to all the disgust of the girls.



Of course I promptly got separated from the group. It took a disgustingly long time to get back together, being it was pretty dark and really really crowded. Despite that, and the chilly April night, we had a good time, and the lights were a beautiful cap to a pretty good weekend.

The Bright Lights of Sakae: The Sequel

Almost everything worth doing in Nagoya, especially at night, is in Sakae. I had two goals of my own this night, taking some pictures of Oasis 21 and the TV Tower with my beautiful Nikon, and eating some tebasaki (awesome teriyaki chicken wings).



Being major Nagoya landmarks, the TV Tower and Oasis 21 were pretty easy to find and photograph. I didn't take too much time, as I've already got plenty of pictures of this part of Japan. A few reprises with my new, better tools were all that was required. Then a quick stop downstairs for some Jamocha Almond Fudge from Baskin Robbins. Yes they have Baskin Robbins in Japan, only here they just call it 31.



The tebasaki proved to be a little bit more difficult to obtain. As long time readers will know I frequent a Nagoya chain called Yamachan that centers around providing chicken of all types. Chicken sashimi, chicken skin, chicken cartilage, and even a few things that I might want to eat, like chicken wings. There are literally dozens of Yamachan restaurants scattered around the Sakae and Fushimi area of Nagoya. Dozens. Yet Liz and I walked for a good 30-40 minutes, circling the center of Sakae and finding NOTHING. Of course if we hadn't been looking than we would have seen about 10 of the places. *sigh*. My GPS (Grant Positioning System) has been getting wonky lately, I suppose I need to see about getting it serviced. We ended up in Kanayama, over in my old neighborhood, and finally found the cluster of three restaurants on the same corner. Why you need three all right there, I'm not quite sure, but it was great for us. Tebasaki, Takoyaki Gyoza (gyoza filling in takoyaki dough, minus the octopus) and more made the long search more than worth it. Liz was actually pretty happy to have discovered the delicious new restaurant.

Photoshop Week Part 3: HDR

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, an increase in the range between the dark areas and light areas in a photo.

While your eye can see a pretty wide range between dark and light, and switch very quickly between the two, you camera cannot. A photographer must choose what part of the picture is important, and expose accordingly. This will leave the rest of the picture either blown out and overexposed or dark, detailess and underexposed.




Except that now we have software, Photomatix Pro, that can create an image with a much broader range, called an HDR picture. It can do this in one of two ways, the first and best is too combine multiple exposures into one 'super exposure.' This is like the three pictues I started with, though notice that Photomatix still had to do some enhancement as I didnt have a wide enough range of exposures to really do the scene justice. I was simply bracketing, looking for one good exposure, not trying to capture all the range in the scene for on HDR.




While combining images usually makes for the best quality HDR, it has its problems. For one thing you had better have a nice, super stable tripod. If it moves even a little bit, on just one of your 3-7 exposures, then your work is for naught, as I have found out with many of my recent multiple exposures! I may have to see about buying a better tripod, but I'm afraid costs seem to ramp up very quickly.




Luckily there is another way, Photomatix can also generate an HDR image from a single RAW file, the uncompressed, usually quite large and unwieldy image file taken by your digital camera. This can require a fair amount of enhancement though, and that results in noise. Notice below, the remarkable difference in the city scene, but also notice the severe digital noise cluttering up the enhanced portion. Had I had a series of exposures to mesh into one, that noise would have (hopefully) been reduced a bit.





HDR's also offer up a lot of opportunities for crazy manipulation in Photoshop. While even I don't always appreciate an overly processed image, I have to admit that many of these 'more real than real' pictures can be very compelling. They may not be a replacement for regular photographs, but they are a great addition to the family. To see some really crazy HDR's, check out the blog that first introduced me to the concept, Stuck in Customs. But might I note that he has a much better camera than I... ;-)



While I won't be changing to an all HDR format anytime soon, its pretty time and effort intensive, I'll certainly be posting many more as the year wears on and I get a chance to experiment a bit more. Enjoy!

One Brightly Lit Temple

I have now been to Kyoto four times. I have been to Kiyomizu-dera three of those four times. This latest trip was sparked by Zach, who found that, like Kanazawa, Kyoto was lighting up one of their most famous landmarks. Always looking for an excuse to use my tripod I jumped at the chance to see the glorious view at night.



And it was glorious. Just walking around the etherially lit temple was a fantastic experience. The towering vermillion pagoda was brilliant in the flood lights. Above everything an eerie blue spotlight shone like a bright tunnel through the dark.



I needn't have bothered bringing the tripod though. To be sure, I needed it, but the crush of the crowd was too much. I never had the space or time to properly set up a night shot. I was forced to wing it with high ISO and a wide open aperature. I managed, barely. I took a whole lot of really, really blurry photos. Even the ones that came out are far from perfect. Even when I was steady as a rock, there was usually somebody kicking, shoving, pushing or just generally jostling me!



Despite that, it really was great. Fiona remarked that this was really beautiful and her favorite thing of the day. I'd say she spoke for everybody there. It was great.



A bit of background on Kiyomizu-dera. The temple was begun in 798 but the building there now date from 1633. The stage and main temple are built in the traditional style sans-nails. Think about that for a little while, especially in a country as earthquake prone as Japan! It is said that if you jump from the stage, and survive, your wish will be granted. Jumping is now prohibited, but heck its only 13 meteres or so, not really that far. Not that I'd be inclined to try it, thats for sure. Also, Kiyomizu-dera is up for inclusion of a New Seven Wonders list. Somebody got it in their head that since of the original 7 only 1 is left we need 6 replacements. There is a 21 'wonder' shortlist and Kiyomizu is on that list along with such sites as the Great Wall, Stonehenge, The Eiffel Tower and Neuschwanstein Castle.



I'll leave you with a bit of strange group photo. Notice I moved a little bit after the flash went off and got the lights of Kyoto cutting Zachs throat. Also we had lost Travis in the the crowd, so it's not quite the whole group. Oops!

Well there it is, Kyoto Fall '06. A good trip, even if the weather didn't cooperate.

Kanazawa Castle and Kenrokuen at Night

In a celebration of fall, both the castle grounds and Kenrokuen were lit up last weekend. I had a bit of time on Friday, and so I rode over with my tripod for some good old-fashioned nighttime photography. It was a very pleasent evening, slightly chill but not overly so. Soft music was playing in the background, and the grounds were shockingly devoid of people. I didn't have as much time in Kenrokuen as I wanted as I had to get back to work, but I wasn't too disapointed as I have seen the gardens at night a couple of times already. However, this was my first trip to the castle at night.