Amami Superman Photography

When we went to Kyushu last month, we decided to take our daughter Jade to the Kagoshima aquarium. They have a dolphin show there and the last time we took her, she was too young to remember.

We were able to get in just before the next show was about to begin, but the only spot left for us to sit was right up front. I remember the first time we came here; the people in front got splashed. It was the only place for us to sit and I figured I would be able to cover my camera with my jacket if it looked like we were going to get splashed. It turned out we never got close to getting splashed.

These children were right up close to the glass when the dolphins became playful, almost as if they were roughhousing, and came right up close to the glass splashing water over the kids. It sent them running.

The show got underway and the MC of the show came out and started his speech. What I thought was really cool was he did it all while using sign language. When I first came to Japan, I worked for a company with an older gentleman that was deaf. I was with that company only about a year but over that time I learn quite a bit of sign language. I was astonished at myself how much I actually still remember. One thing I'd like to mention about Japanese sign language, it's different from sign language in English. When I first started to learn it, I thought it was all the same. It was only later when I started to look things up on the internet about sign language that I found out they were all different.

If I ever go back to see this show again, I'll be sure to show up early to pick a better seat. I was sitting right in front of these steps with the hand railings and it was very difficult trying to figure out where the dolphins were going to jump out of the water from and focus at the same time. So many of my photos were out of focus because the auto focus focused on the railings. Even when I changed the focus points, I still messed them up. I suppose it's something that comes with practice.

I also didn't do too much post editing to these photos. They may seem a bit dark but lighting in the big room really was kind of poor. About the only post editing I did was the white balance. Most of the photos' white balance was all messed up. Sometime the walls looked brown and sometimes even green. I think they were a light blue but most of the photos turned out kind of pinkish.

After the dolphin show, we took our time and walked though the aquarium checking out everything we could. It was a holiday weekend and there were quite a few people there that day. The inside of this building was quite toasty.

I'm not positive about this, but I believe these dolphins are from right there in Kagoshima. They have plenty of dolphins around the bay there. Sometimes if you're lucky, you'll get a large pod of dolphins that will follow the ferry you're riding back to Amami on. They come and play in the wake of the ship. It's fun to watch them as they jump off a wake as a wake boarder would do. It's a pretty cool sight to see.