WORLD ART IN JAPAN

Imagine an art museum that had the paintings of artists from all the eras of history, from the mosaic artists of lost Pompei to the Pop Art of Andy Warhol... Imagine that all the famous names were represented there - Botticelli, da Vinci, Constable, Vermeer, Monet, Van Gogh, Pollock, Picasso...



Well, they've done it in Japan! When I first heard about Otsuka Museum in Naruto, Shikoku, it seemed like a bizarre idea to display copies of famous artworks. However I went there recently on the recommendation of a good friend who often visits art museums. Even though the artworks are only copies, it was an amazing experience. I will probably never get to see most of those original paintings, but to stand before life-size framed copies was totally different than looking at art books or prints.

The paintings are reproduced on ceramic tile board, so the color and texture is closer to that of actual paint. Some larger works were divided into several panels. This was a shame because it did diminish their impact, but even so the fact that they were reproduced in the actual size of the original paintings meant that you could experience the image much more closely to how the artist intended. I gained a new appreciation for paintings I already loved, and also discovered many works and artists I did not know of previously.


If you're in Japan and you love art, I highly recommend Otsuka Museum!

see more photos of Otsuka Art Museum here

MO-AN CAFE

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I finally went to Mo-an Cafe in Kyoto. I tried to go there after climbing Daimon-ji with some friends last Autumn, but there was a half hour wait to get in, and I didn't have time to wait. But last week I climbed the path up through the green, mossy garden once again, and had lunch in the beautiful old restaurant. On one side of the restaurant you can see out over the rooftops of Kyoto, and the other side overlooks the trees of the garden.


Athough the setting was absolutely perfect, the food was a little disappointing. It was alright, but nothing special (and kind of expensive for nothing special.) One of my companions used to be a regular at the cafe, and she said the menu had changed. Her favorite in the past was curry, but it was no longer available and so we ate udon, and pita 'sandwiches'.

If I go again, I think I'll just order coffee and enjoy the view.

TOJI MARKET

Every month on the 21st a huge market is held in the grounds of Toji Temple. Vendors set up their stalls starting at 6am. I've never been there that early, but one of my friends sells artwork there sometimes. There are food stalls and all kinds of crafts, antiques, junk, and vintage kimonos.




I've bought several kimonos there. I also bought my favorite bowl for just two hundred yen (It often appears in the photographs on my food blog.) My other Toji Market purchases include a head-scarf, dried fruit, fresh ginger root, and a pot plant.

The absolute strangest thing I saw there was a snake in a jar of alcohol. The alcohol is meant for drinking, not just to preserve the snake specimen. Someone told me it's an Okinawan thing. I wanted to take a photo, but the vendor wasn't happy about it.

MY JAPANESE APARTMENT: A BATH ON MY BALCONY

My apartment is pretty old by Japanese standards (but not by New Zealand standards). Changes in Japanese lifestyle show clearly in the design. For example my shower and bath are on the balcony! This is because when my apartment was built, there was NO bathroom! Until about two years ago there was a sento (a bath house) at the bottom of the hill, where people could go to soak in a large communal bath. I often saw elderly people wandering along the street with their buckets full of bathing equipment. It seemed very strange and inconvenient to me, but on reflection I can see that from  economic, ecological and community standpoints, the sento was a much better idea than every house and apartment having their own private bathroom. Sadly the beautiful old sento was demolished and now generic suburban houses stand on the site. The area has lost both character and a piece of history.

The mini-bath

Getting back to my balcony bathroom, although it was added on like an after-thought, it's not as bad as it sounds. In fact, it's not so much on the balcony, as a small room off the balcony. It has an excellent shower and a very small bath. Although I can't stretch out in the bath, it uses less water and it's deep, up to my neck if I fill it right up. Maybe I even prefer it to the larger baths I was used to in New Zealand. In Japan most people still take baths daily, in the evening. I like this custom - a bath is a good way to warm up, and relax after a busy day.

Sometimes in winter it seems intolerable that I must go out of my nice warm apartment in order to enter my freezing cold bathroom, but the hot water always warms me up again. In warm weather I can sit in the mini bath with the door open (privacy isn't a problem) and listen to birds singing in my neighbor's garden. I always leave the door open after using the bathroom, so mould is never problem, although I do have to check before entering in summer, because centipedes, spiders, beetles and even lizards seem to find it an attractive place.

EVEN MORE FUN WITH PHOTOS: MAKING STUFF

This post is about making stuff with photos. There are lots of cool websites on the net where you can do fun stuff with your photos - for free. This list is just a sampler of what's available.

You can turn a photo into a personalized eCard at Picnik, adding text, speech balloons, stickers and special effects. Some of the choices are only available to paid members, but there are still lots of free options as well. One of my favorite Picnik effects is the zoom focus.




There are also lots of free frames,
text options and special effects at Tuxpi

Surprise someone by putting their face (or your own) on a magazine cover or a billboard at Photo505...










I also use my photos to create impressionist style digital paintings. I use software called Dynamic Auto Painter. It's easy, fast and fun to do. The resulting paintings really look as if they were painted with brushes. There are a number of different styles to choose from, and various ways you can adjust the end result. I've even sold a few of my paintings as posters and cards on Zazzle. My best seller digital painting is from a photo of a Harley motorbike.




And that brings me to another fun thing you can do with photos... you can put them on physical objects like mousepads, t-shirts, and mugs. I haven't tried this particular option yet, but I will... once I make up my mind which photos to use (that's one problem with having over 12,000 images!) Zazzle has a huge range of products to customize with your own images, and you can also sell products designed by you on the website. ArtsCow also has a wide range of products including a few not covered by Zazzle such as umbrellas, blankets and watches. Both Zazzle and ArtsCow have cards, posters and canvas prints, as do Red Bubble and Imagekind.

And if you had a photo or piece of digital artwork that you really really liked, you could even turn it into a wall mural at Murals Your Way.

Have fun!

PLUM BLOSSOM IN GION

Although we haven't had as much snow as Europe and North America this winter has been the coldest I remember since I came to Japan. But February should see the end of it and by next month the weather will begin to warm up. I was going through some photos of Gion that I took last March. Gion is the old area of Kyoto where geishas lived, and where the story of Sayuri was mostly set. Even today, if you walk around Gion  in the evening, you might catch a glimpse of a beautifully clad maiko or geisha heading to an evening engagement.

My photos were taken in the afternoon. There were no geishas, but there were beautiful pink and white plum blossoms - the first messengers of spring.

Send free eCards with pictures of Japan
Search Amazon.com for books about kyoto
          

MORE FUN WITH PHOTOS: SHARING

If you take photos you probably want to share them. Luckily people love to look at pictures. There are lots and lots of places on the internet to share photos. I use several of them...

My oldest photo sharing venue is my  photo blog on Aminus3, where I've been putting one new photo every day for the last 1,450+ days. Aminus3 has members from all over the world. It's a virtual world tour to look at  other member's photos! I love to get comments from other members, because it tells me someone has seen and enjoyed my photo. Most comments are positive. I don't think it's a good place to get constructive criticism, but there's plenty of opportunity to compare my photos with other photographers who are better than me. I am often inspired and challenged when I see other people's work. Joining Aminus3 is free.

I also use Flickr. Lots of people use Flickr! You can see reports (stats) of how many people have viewed your photos. I'm often surprised how many people have been checking out my shots. It's a great place to check out other photographers' work too. Flickr also has lots of other useful features such as themed groups, tagging and convenient sharing to blogs and email. I often submit appropriate photos to the various groups I belong to, and most of the comments I get come through those groups. Flickr is also a good way to back up your photos. I have over 12,000 images on Flickr. If anything ever happened to my computer, I could still retrieve my images from my Flickr account. Basic Flickr is free, but because I have so many images I pay for a Pro account at US$24.95 per year. I believe Picasa Web Albums offers a similar service.

I've probably had most fun sharing photos on Facebook, through photo albums, and more recently through PhotoVoo. The idea with PhotoVoo is you submit photos to a themed gallery or challenge, and other people can "Love" them. Photos with the most "Loves" win competitions. People can also comment on photos, and I've made several friends via conversations that started out as comments.

I also enjoy using my own photos to illustrate my blogs. Whether it's a magazine or a blog, good images grab attention and keep it longer.

FUN WITH PHOTOS: EDITING

Increased saturation and contrast

Photography is a big part of my life. Maybe it's my addiction! I have over 12,000 photos on Flickr (not all them are good - but I use it as a backup, in case anything ever happened to my computer.) I started to get interested in photography years ago when I worked in one hour photo labs in New Zealand. My job was to print photos, check them, and fix them if they were too dark or light, or a strange color. Perhaps because of that, I have always been interested in editing photos.

I love how digital cameras and computers have made editing easier for ordinary, non-technical people. For years and years I took all my photos on my camera's automatic settings, because I wasn't much interested in cameras... it was the picture I was interested in... the view, or the face, or the moment. Although I have learned a bit more about how my camera works over the last couple of years (enough to know I should buy a better one) I still spend more time editing photos and doing other stuff with them, than I spend taking them. And while you can't make a bad photo into a good one, many photos can be improved with a little editing.

Increased saturation & color correction

Sometimes people ask me what I use for editing. I use several different programs and none of them are Photoshop. I do have an old-ish copy of Photoshop, but it's all in Japanese, most of which I can't read. To start with I use Picasa to adjust light and dark contrast, sometimes increase the saturation (I like rich color), and occasionally crop my images. I also use Picasa to remove any small marks. (It's quite good for getting rid of wrinkles!)

Wrinkles & dark circles under eyes removed

Picasa is also very convenient for cropping images, but if the image needs straightening, I do it in Paint.net because if you use the straightening feature in Picasa the image loses some of its sharpness.

Straightened

Both Picasa and Paint.net are free to download.

ALTERNATIVE TO NOH AND KABUKI

Image via Wikipedia
Most people have heard of Kabuki and Noh, but Japan has another trditional form of theater - bunraku.

Bunraku is a kind of puppet theater. The puppets are quite large, and each puppet is operated by three puppeteers. The puppeteers are visible on stage, but they are dressed all in black with black hoods over their heads to help the audience "filter them out".

The puppets have gorgeous costumes and are capable of very sophisticated movements. In fact,sometimes it is easy to forget you are seeing a puppet and not a human actor. The sets are very impressive too. If you attend a Bunraku performance you should take a lunchbox. The whole performance lasts about 4 hours, with a lunch break in the middle. People eat their obento in the auditorium or in the lobby on seats and benches provided.

Bunraku is not theater for children. The stories are similar to kabuki, and sometimes the same plays are performed in both. However Bunraku performances are much cheaper to attend than kabuki, possibly because Bunraku is designated a cultural treasure in Japan and subsidized by the government.

  

2012 & THE END OF THE WORLD

Image via WikipediaDid you hear the world is going to end in 2012?

According to the prophecies of Nostradamus, and also Baba Vanga (sorry? who?), and also according to the Mayan Calendar, we are running out of time. Natural disasters on an unheard of scale (floods, earthquakes, plagues) are already occurring and World War Three is imminent.

Do you believe this? Do I believe it...? Actually, that's not the important question we should be asking.

IF the world is going to end, it will. If there are going to be natural disasters, then they will happen.  Fear or panic won't make any difference. None of us know whether we'll be struck down tomorrow or next week by sickness or violence or random accident, so with our fragile mortality in mind, we should all ask ourselves the really important question...

How do I want to spend today?

Big Circumstance

One of my favorite songs from way back is  Anything Can Happen by Canadian musical poet Bruce Cockburn  It's on his album Big Circumstance (a really great album!) Bruce Cockburn is one of my favorite singers.

You could have gone off the Bloor St. viaduct
i could have been run down in the street
you could have got botulism anytime
i could have gone overboard into the sea

Anything can happen
to put out the light,
is it any wonder
i don't want to say goodnight?

I could have been hit by a falling pane of glass
you could have had shark teeth write "finit"
we could have been nailed by some vigilante type
in a case of mistaken identity -- obviously

Anything can happen
to put out the light
is it any wonder
i don't want to say goodnight?

We could have been lynched and tarred and feathered --
been on a plane that crashed in flames --
could have done the neutron melt together
but here we are just the same!

You could have been daggered in the dead of night
You could have been gassed inside your car.
I could have been walking in the open fields
and been drilled through the head by a shooting star

Anything can happen
to put out the light
is it any wonder
i don't want to say goodnight?

Related articles

• George Lucas Believes World Will End in 2012 (newser.com)

JAPANESE TEMPLE IN THE SNOW

There's a small local temple in Yamashina called Honkokuji.  It nestles at the foot of forest clad hills. To find it you must walk up to Biwako Canal from Misasagi and cross the red bridge. Your first tantalizing glimpse will be the red gate amid the trees. Passing through that you will see a second gate guarded by two fierce looking golden  giants. Straight ahead the main hall with a statue of a stern but gentle monk with one arm outstretched, to the left a pretty bell tower with a large golden bell.

The fish on the roof of the second gate, a small torii, an elegant Asian dragon and various other details also also gleam gold against the wooden buildings and the trees. This temple has  a lot of gold, which I'm told is unusual in Kyoto (with the notable exception of Kinkakuji.)


I often visit this photogenic little temple to take photographs. I went there recently in the snow on New Year's Eve. If you're ever in neighborhood, it's a pleasant way to spend an hour or two.

Oh, and unlike Kinkakuji, it's free, and it's never crowded!

Related articles

• Winter Wonderland in Kyoto (eatplayrove.blogspot.com)
• Snow at New Year (eatplayrove.blogspot.com)