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)

MY FAVORITE BRIDGE IN KYOTO

Kyoto has a lot of bridges. Some of them are very old and famous, like Togetsukyo over the Hozu River in Arashiyama. But my favouite bridge is small and off the beaten track. It's on a small road in Yamashina that ends with Honkokuji Temple. . In spring the bridge is surrounded with cherry blossom. In summer the startling vermilion paint and gold detail create wonderful contrast with the green leaves. In Autumn the colors of cherry and maple echo the colors of the bridge, and in the winter snow it was dazzling!

Related articles

• Winter Wonderland in Kyoto (eatplayrove.blogspot.com)
• Autumn in Kyoto (eatplayrove.blogspot.com)