About Me
- Amami Superman
- I live on a small island in southern Japan called Amami Oshima. I have many interests and hobbies. I made this blog to share with my family and friends.
翻訳
This photo was taken along with the photos of my previous post. The third grade at Jade's school had an open house and after it all finished I was waiting for her out in front of the school steps. When I saw her come down I absentmindedly turned on my camera and snapped this shot without checking my settings from previously shooting indoor. I can't tell you how many times I've ruined shots like this because I forget to check my settings.
Anyway! Although it was a very blown out photo, I messed around with it in Lightroom 3 to see if I could make something interesting out of it and this is what I came up with. Here is the original. I did a bit of cropping, upped the recovery to full and upped the blacks a bunch. I also added a bit of clarity and gave it some graininess along with a vignette. I kind of like it considering it was a completely worthless photo to begin with.
Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/200 sec, f/4.0, ISO 200 -- EXIF
I took this shot last Sunday while my wife's family was at their haka. I wanted to try out the new Grain feature under Effects in Lightroom 3. I thought the graininess of the photo turned out pretty nice.
Before adding the grain, I switched it to Black & White, put the Recovery at 100 (had just a few blown out spots), upped the Fill Light and Blacks. I then raised the Contrast to 85 and the Brightness to 65 and then gave it a Vignette. Lastly, I gave it some graininess. Here is the original photo if you would like to have a look.
So that's just some photo I chose to mess up to learn how to use some of the new features in Lightroom 3. In all honesty, I was never any good at using Lightroom 2 even, but meh, I enjoy using it. :P It makes things so much easier.
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/40 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Japanese Tree Fern
(???)
The name of this plant is hikage hego. I did a few searches about this and came up with "Japanese tree fern". I always thought these were a type of palm tree! Anyways, these are the buds of new leaves. They are actually quite large. The base of these buds are larger than a soda can. This photo wasn't very interesting in color so I switched it to black and white, gave it a vignette and adjusted some of the variable settings inside of Lightroom 2.
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/40 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Nice and Golden
I've had quite a few barbecues this year. My wife sells bags of big marshmallows in her shop and we usually roast some at the end of our barbecues over the dying coals. Most Japanese don't have a clue about roasting marshmallows let alone ever eating a smore. So whenever we have friends over for a barbecue, we bust out the marshmallows and teach the art of roasting.
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/40 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Hot Marshmallow
I thought this photo of Jade looked nice black and white. In color, the highlights were blown out and just didn't look good at all.
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Stone Lantern
I made some posts during setsubun last month of this year's otakiage and mame maki. These are just some random photos I chose to make black and white.
This first photo actually has some sakura above the lantern but they're hard to see as they blend in with the bokeh of the trees and sky.
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/30 sec, f/4.0, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Walking Quietly to Perform a Rite
For a panning shot at 1/30 sec shutter, I thought it turned out pretty well.
Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 90mm, 1/60 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Watching Intently
(or maybe sleeping with his eyes open)
Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 32mm, 1/800 sec, f/4.8, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Wishes Ablaze
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/100 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 -- EXIF
A Bell on a Rope
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/125 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 -- EXIF
I Don't Think He Likes Me
This last photo is of a cameraman who works for one of the local newspapers here in Amami. He didn't seem to happy that I was taking his photo. Oh well...
So those were some of the random photos I shot last month during setsubun at Takachiho Shrine. I usually take a lot more photos than I put in my posts and a lot of the photos I like never find their way to a post because they don't fit into the context of the post or I just have too many to share in one or two posts.
If you've ever been to a shrine in Japan, it's more than likely you've seen guardian dog statues like these. They are called different things throughout Japan. I believe that they call these statues "komainu" in the central part of Japan. In the southern islands of Japan, like here in Amami, they call these statues "shisa".
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/1000 sec, f/2.0, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Shisa
I asked one of the priests at the shrine here in Amami why one had its mouth open and the other had it shut. He explained to me that the one with the open mouth is making the "a" sound, and the one with the shut mouth is making the "n" sound. "a" and "n" happen to be the first and last characters in the Japanese alphabet (あ and ん). He basically said that it means the beginning and the end. "The alpha and omega."
I had the opportunity to go take some photos of an event they have each year at the shrine here in Amami. As I was talking with one of the priests, he mentioned that they were short staffed and didn't have anyone to take photos of the event. I told him I would be more than happy to help out and he seemed more than happy to have someone take photos. I took around 500 photos in the space of a little more than 3 hours. I'm still sorting through them trying whittle down the numbers. Hopefully I'll be able to do that today and get them a disc of the photos I took.
The above photos were made black and white inside of Lightroom 2 and put together in Photoshop CS3. Both of the photos were taken using the same camera settings, but the metadata will be off because it's only for 1 photo.
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 -- EXIF
I haven't been feeling well lately but it was such nice weather, I decided to take my Sigma 30mm f/1.4 out for a walk around the block to see what I could shoot. This old guy lives just down the street from me. He always has flowers blooming out in front of his house and I happened upon him as he was watering them.
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Like a Gun Slinger
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/640 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Posing for a Shot
He didn't smile much, but he talked as if he was genuinely happy that someone was taking an interest in him and what he does. He was so happy that he invited me back behind his house to see more of some of the things he does.
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/60 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 -- EXIF
Beckoning
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/50 sec, f/1.4, ISO 200 -- EXIF
His Pride and Joy
He brought out plant after plant telling me about them and where you could find them here in Amami. Most of what he grows are native to here on the island. It was a bit difficult to keep up with what he was saying because he spoke some of the old Amami dialect.
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/40 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Seeds
These are some of the seeds he produces from the plants he grows. I was really amazed at all the different plants he had back behind his house.
Nikon D60, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, 1/15 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Sprouts
He would show me some plants and the seeds he got from them. Then he would show me the spouts he produced from those seeds. I could tell by the way he spoke of the different plants that he really has a love for what he does. In a way, I was envious of him. He has so much knowledge of what he loves to do. Someday I would like to be the same.
I decided to change these photos to black and white in Lightroom 2. I think it gives these photos more flavor then they would have in color.
Nikon D60, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 48mm, 1/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Steps of Darkened Wonder
As I said in my previous post, I would try to enhance the photos I didn't like at first to make them seem better. In color, this photo just didn't strike me. But after doing some post editing, I really liked it.
I converted it to Grayscale, upped the Blacks and Fill Light and gave it a Vignette inside of Lightroom 2. I also did some Sharpening trying to up the "graininess" of the photo. I could have brought it into Photoshop to do that, but decided not to. I hope you like it.
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