Amami Superman Photography

On our trip to Kyushu, after arriving in Kagoshima, driving to Fukuoka and spending the night in a hotel, we woke up early the next morning and headed back to the Kagoshima Prefecture.

We had planned out some places to take our daughter Jade. The first place we planned on going was the Takachiho Farms. They have a few events that only happen at certain times of the day so, again, we were pressed for time. Takachiho Farms is actually in Miyazaki I believe, but it's very close to Kagoshima on the Ebino Plateau. We got off the freeway at the Ebino JCT and headed over the mountains towards the Ebino Plateau.

On our way, we came across the Kirishima-Yaku National Park. As we were passing one of the many parking lots there, my wife points out some deer in one. Not wanting to scare them away, I pulled the rent-a-car off the opposite side of the road. As I started to snap shots off, I thought it would be cool if we could get Jade in some of these photos. I told Jade to move very slowly towards the deer so I could get a photo of her. It took a minute or two for her to finally get close and when she turned around, I took as many shots as I could. Then the cars started to roll by.

As the first car stops off the side of the road right next to the deer, I was screaming in my head, "You're going to scare them away! IDIOTS!" But to my surprise, the deer didn't run away. More cars came and stopped and soon the side of the road was full of people and cars and a good photo opportunity turned sour.

These are some of the photos I was able to take before everyone showed up.

I read somewhere that Kirishima was used as a filming location for the James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice. I've seen the movie, but I'll have to watch it again to see if I can recognize where was filmed.

After returning back to Amami last week, I've been devastated again by another cold. It's tough for me to take off work, especially during this time of the year. Today was the first day I felt halfway decent enough to get out of bed and get some thing done on my computer. Good news is my ear infections are better and my ears are clearing up day by day.

Jade ran a 1k race last week. She took 5th place out of close to 40 other girls. Although I felt like I was on my deathbed, I went out to cheer her on and try to take a few photos. It was a cloudy day with breaks of sunshine but for the most part, cloudy. I decided to try to take photos using manual setting. I had it all set up and took some nice photos up until Jade's race. As her race began, the sun peaked out from behind the clouds. I, being the enthusiastic encouraging father I am, was yelling at the top of my lungs while taking photos and completely forgot to compensate for the bright sun. I pretty much ruined every photo of her race. I wanted to kick myself. As the saying goes, we learn from our mistakes...