Silhouette

I'm gonna do a few days from a trip to Takayama from a few weeks ago. Went on a little hike through a chain of shrines, and this was really popped with the position of the sun and the clouds.

Rising Sun

An excellent lantern from the festival, and will be the last one from the series. I like this because the angle I shot it at portrayed the old Rising Sun flag of Japan used some time ago.

Distorted

This one is very MC Escher to me. You can hardly tell which way is up/down and I'm just amazed this design is all on one sheet of paper.

Eye Teaser

If you're looking at the middle, and your eyes move even the slightest bit, it throws them for a loop. Then you struggle to get them back into focus. Its a lot more intense if you have a blown up version of the picture.

Bloomin'

I think my favorite part about these lantern photos is that they are surrounded in darkness. Not being able to make out the background really allows these lanterns to pop, and even the small details in the design. I'll do a few more days of these, but I think I will refrain from making comments, unless there is something specific that needs to be said. Thanks, enjoy.

Umbrellas & Silhouettes

All hand-made... I didn't think about it at the time, but I should have figured out how the silhouettes got there.

Stacked

Paper Mushroom

I think this was my favorite lantern at the festival. I'll show another one or two over the next few days so you can get an idea of what it looked like. Don't have much more to say really, just has good depth, color and overall weirdness to it.

Flowers

Alright, so I went to a paper lantern festival this past weekend, so I'm gonna spend the next few days going through some of my favorites from the night. There was some real creativity out there, so I tried my best to work around the crowds and get in for interesting shots. I was a fan of the bright colors and space in between. Mind you, these are all hand-made with hand-made Japanese washi (paper)

FORE!

Japan is littered with golf driving ranges, because there is so little land to actually place courses. I have seen driving ranges as small as 60 yards plopped in the middle of a major city. The golf industry is huge here, but the cost of playing is so high, that most people are left with only driving range time. Here there, we just happened to have the perfect sunset for where I was at the time. Wonderful color, nice cloud placement and the sun fits perfect between the pillars.

Aftermath

This was after we came in from the fishing. We were moving too fast, so none of my pictures turned up from going down the stream. We were parked and they were packing up the birds and fish, so it made for a good photo-op

What's Inside?

The baskets there holds the birds until its time to let them go fishing. The strings and the hanging cage, well, I already explained those. The fog is so mystical, I just couldn't believe the atmosphere at the time. The ride, was unfortunately very short because the river was flowing really fast, but I think I got my moneys worth during the prep time.

Prep Time

Heres me coming in a little bit. They took a long time to prepare for the short journey down the river. They have to make sure all of the birds are attached to the leashes and they massage the throats of the birds as well. The idea is that the birds are attached by a rope around the neck, so that when they dive for fish, they are unable to swallow them when they bring them back to the boat. Settle down PETA, the only animals that are harmed in the making of this event are the fish that are caught and eventually smoked to delicious sweet goodness.