I've
had an itch as of late.
It's been slowly growing, and at times,
say after a brief foray into Kamakura it dies down a
little. But it never entirely went away and always comes
back.
So today I decided to do something
about it and go ahead and scratch that itch.
I emailed a few Ryokan in Kyoto and
secured some lodging for late next week in my favorite
place on Earth.
Yup, I'm off to Kyoto again.
I sure hope the lenses I recently
ordered (Canon 135mm f2 L and 70-200mm f2.8 L IS) arrive
before I depart. And speaking of lenses, I will finally
get a chance to give my brand-new-used Canon 50mm f1.0
L a good workout. The 50mm f1.0 is a heavy beast, but
that's the price you pay for the fastest electronic
focus lens in existence.
I'm really looking forward to using
the 135mm f2 and the 50mm f1.0 to capture some Maiko
and Geiko during late afternoons in Gion. These are
both great available-light lenses and I have a feeling
that the extremely narrow plane of focus and buttery
smooth bokeh are going to produce some pretty spectacular
results.
I just wish Canons new EOS
5D (12.8 megapixel full frame, looks like Christmas
came early this year!) DSLR was now available, but since
has only today been officially announced and will likely
start to sell about 6-8 weeks from now my EOS Rebel
XT will have to suffice for now. (But it gives me a
real good reason to go back to Kyoto again, say in another
6-8 weeks...with a shiny new EOS 5D in my camera bag...)
--
Now that I have all that photo-techno
stuff out of the way, let me jump back into something
a little more relevant.
Please pardon me if this next section
is a littel brief. I'm about ready to collapse into
a food-coma. I ate an entire large frozen Red Baron
pizza for dinner, and it, along with a glass of chilled
osake have just started to kick in and I can feel my
eyelids starting to droop...
OK, before I start drooling on my
keyboard:
This coming weekend the Koenji
Awadori Matsuri is taking place. This is going to
be the 49th annual occurrence of this event and it is
going to be a photographers feeding frenzy.
Both women and men dress up and dance
with their arms above their heads. (Not sure of the
significance of this yet, but it could have something
to do with an antiperspirant company sponsoring the
event) The women wear Yukata with folded straw hats,
and the men wear happi coats and tabi.
Another odd twist is that when the
men are dancing, not only must the keep their arms above
their heads, but they are also not supposed to let their
heels touch the ground.
This will be the first time I attend
this event, so I am really looking forward to it. I'll
be sure to get some audio to go along with the pictures.
I do so love the summer matsuri season in Japan...
Comment 31
|
