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Miyakojima (宮古島) - Part 3

The next morning we went snorkeling. Visibility was great. I saw thousands of beautiful tropical fish and some amazing coral formations. Unfortunately I still don't have an underwater digital camera. I've been meaning to get one but keep putting it off. So this time I took some crappy (probably) pictures with a disposable underwater 35mm camera. If any of them come out OK I'll post them here when I get back the prints.

That afternoon my wife wanted to make a Siisaa (シーサー), one of those clay dog, lion, monster things. There are a few pottery shops on the island where people can go and learn how to make one of these things. We found one and she went to work. The guy there walked her through making the body, adding the legs, head, etc. He was really fast. She was not.

I don't have the patience to sit for 3 hours making something, but it was fun to watch her and take pictures of the beast slowing taking shape.

I spent the time looking around the pottery shop and watching a man make clay cups on a pottery wheel.

As an added bonus it was raining off and on. In Miyakojima, like Guam and many other pacific islands, the rain comes down in short spurs, rests for a while to catch its breath, and then falls again. In these brief periods I ran outside to catch some shots of rain drops resting gently on the petals of the flowers outside the pottery shop.

There was also a spider in its web just under the overhang of the roof. The rain wasn't hitting the web directly, with each shower a few more random drops hit the web. I was pretty sure that if I waited long enough I could get one of those cool rain drop spider web shots that you see from time to time. After about 2 hours of off and on rain, I got it.

After she finished making her monster we still had about 3 hours to kill before our flight back to mainland Japan. We spend the time driving around the other side of the island, the side we hadn't seen the day before. There's amazing lagoon on the southeast coast that I would love to dive in one of these days. With only a small opening to the ocean, the water is calm, clear, and still. From the top of an outcropping of rock next to the lagoon, you can see along the coast for miles in both directions.

It was a short trip. We left early Saturday morning and returned late Sunday night. But in that short period of time I fell in love with this beautiful island. We'll definitely visit again. If you ever get the chance, go to Miyakojima.

All images © 2010 by Jason Weddington, All Rights Reserved. No Use Without Written Permission. Contact me at the_wandering_eye [at] yahoo [dot] com for usage or licensing requests.

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Miyakojima (宮古島) - Part 2

Back at the hotel... Amazing room, flowers on the balcony, the ocean in the distance... We paid for the whole trip as a package deal 3 months or so ago. This is the way to do it. By the time you get there you've forgotten exactly how much you paid, and the pain of paying has long since faded. Yes, I know this is irrational, but you should definitely try paying for a trip in advance. Trust me, it feels better that way. If you don't think this makes any sense read "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely and then we'll talk.

That night we went to this open air village thing. They had a weird system where you sit at a table, look at the menu, and then walk to the booth to order. Than you sit back at your table until they call your number. Then you go get your food. And when you finish you have to take back your own trays. But the food was great, and Okinawan Orian Beer is great on a warm evening after a hot day. I had my 50mm f/1.4 which is wonderful for turning mundane scenes into beautiful photographic backgrounds.

The band was good too. They're call Harvesta (ハーバスタ) and you can find them on MySpace here. Apparently these guys are playing Osaka and Tokyo in the next few weeks. Check them out if you're in the area.

All images © 2010 by Jason Weddington, All Rights Reserved. No Use Without Written Permission. Contact me at the_wandering_eye [at] yahoo [dot] com for usage or licensing requests.

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Miyakojima (宮古島) - Part 1

Miyakojima

A few months ago I signed up for the annual Tour Du Miyakojima, a 100km cycling road race on the Island of Miyakojima. Miyakojima is about 300km southwest of the main island of Okinawa.

The plan was to ditch the kids with their grandparents and to have a nice weekend getaway with just the two of us. And to race 100km on a bike somewhere in there. But as the race got closer the weather forecast looked worse and worse. It seemed like it was going to rain all weekend. The plan tickets and hotel were already paid for, but it was starting to look like a miserable weekend for a bike race. So I decided to leave the bike behind, and just spend a weekend on an island with my wife. I figured a weekend of relaxing would do me good, even if it was rainy. And of course I was hoping to make some good photos.

As it turned out, the weather was perfect! But I don't regret skipping the race. It was pretty hot, and those guys looked miserable. And since I didn't have the race to worry about we had a great time touring the island.

We arrived around 10:30am and had several hours before checking into the hotel. We spent the time driving around in a rental car and taking in the sights. Misakojima is beautiful. And unlike most places in Japan that are worth visiting, it wasn't crowded at all. The roads were empty, the parks were empty. After 4 years in Tokyo, I felt like I could finally breath again.

One of the first places we stopped was Sunayama Beach (lit. "sand mountain beach"). Surprisingly enough, it's a big mountain of sand that drops down to the water. We saw butterflies, pretty flowers, beautiful green plants, and the amazing emerald green of the Pacific Ocean. Truly island paradise stuff.

All images © 2010 by Jason Weddington, All Rights Reserved. No Use Without Written Permission. Contact me at the_wandering_eye [at] yahoo [dot] com for usage or licensing requests.

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First Wedding Shoot - Part 3

Planning for the Wedding Day (continued from here)

The Wedding Photographer's Handbook really opened my eyes to the amount of planning that the pros put into a wedding shoot. Hurter recommends talking to the flourist, the caterer, DJ, etc before the event. He also suggests studying the wedding gown from a fashion and design perspective to achieve an awareness of what details to shoot. And perhaps most importantly, visit the location prior to the ceremony at around the same time of day to get a feel for the lighting. This is serious stuff!

I didn't have time for the detailed in-depth prepartions recommend in the book, but I did visit the setting about 24 hours before the actual wedding ceremony. I took pictures of locations that I thought would work for group shots, and I made mental notes of how the shadows were falling, and where to place my flashes. I also studied the lighting using Lighttrac for iPad to see where the sun would be a different times in the day. Read more about this cool app [here].

That night I reviewed my test photos, and organized my shot list. My mom had kindly provided an impossibly long list of requested group shots. My sister and I hacked away at it for a while to make it more reasonable, and I tried to organize the final list by location, hoping to decide ahead of time which shots to take where. This helped a little, but I ended up making several changes on the wedding day because of people camped out in the background of my planned shot areas.

Next: Backing up photos onsite

First Wedding Shoot - Part 2

Group Shots (continued from here)

I'd been to enough weddings to know that there would be a need for lots of group shots. I was sure this would be a challenge. You always see the photog referring to a paper shot list, and in addition to that, there's always someone yelling at the last minute "oh, let's get one with uncle Bob!"

And that's before you get to the technical issues like having enough depth of field to keep everyone in sharp focus, making sure no one's face is in shadow, and making sure uncle Bob doesn't have his eyes closed in the shot. Kelby's book has a couple good tips for these issues too. For groups of people he recommends shooting at f/11 and focusing on the eyes of the person in the first row. Perfect! Practical advice I can use right away without having to trial-and-error my way to the same conclusion. Kelby also mentioned that in group shots someone always has their eyes closed. He recommends telling everyone to close their eyes at the outset, count to 3 and then tell people to open their eyes and smile. This trick works great and has the added benefit of being funny and unexpected - so the smiles are genuine.

Another book that was very helpful was the Wedding Photographer's Handbook, by Bill Hurter. If you're shooting your first wedding, you need to read this book. It's full of practical advice, sample photos, ideas for album layouts, etc. The constant "watch your DoF" reminders were especially helpful. I often use shallow depth of field for creative effect, and I really did need to be reminded of the situations were I'd need to stop down to f/11 or so to get enough DoF for the group shots.

Next time: Planning for the Wedding Day

First Wedding Shoot - Part 1

Back in December my sister asked me to shoot her wedding, which was about 6 months away.

At the time I knew just enough about wedding photography to know that I was completely unqualified to shoot a wedding. So of course I agreed. In the next series of posts I will recount my journey over the last several months and the steps I took to prepare for the wedding.

Two Bodies

The first thing I did was look for a few good photography books to learn more about wedding photography. One of the books I picked up was The Digital Photography Book, Vol. 1, by Scott Kelby. It's more of a tips and trick book than a detailed how-to, and there are a lot of little gems in there. On of the first things I noted in this book was the importance of shooting with two bodies at any event that has lots of action happening in various locations. You put a wide angle on one body and a telephoto on the other and you're all set to catch the whole scene, and grab candids of people in the kind of natural happy moments that happen at weddings, sports events, etc.

But I didn't have two bodies. I had one. The Canon 5D Mark II. The 5D is big and heavy, not really a take-anywhere camera. I'd been wanting a cheap lightweight SLR for a while, and now I had my justification. So I started trolling the used camera shops in Tokyo and eventually picked up a brand new Canon Kiss X2 (aka 450D, Rebel XSi) still in the original packaging for great price. The Kiss doesn't shine a candle to the 5D, but it takes reasonable pictures in good lighting conditions and would have to do as a secondary body.

Looking up in Toranomon

Lunch break photo walks are hard; almost nothing looks good with the midday sun directly overhead. I started doing these because I think I need more time behind the camera and finding a good photo in a limited amount of time in difficult lighting conditions with only one lens to choose from can be good practice.

(I bring only a single prime lens for my week-day practice shoots. Usually it's the EF 24mm f/2.8 because that lens is small and light and fits in my bag nicely, but today I brought my EF 35mm f/1.4L)

But I've already walked all over Akasaka, and taken pretty much every photo that can be taken within walking distance from my building on a one hour lunch break. The images are starting to blur together and I'm beginning to hate myself for taking so many pictures of flowers.

So I decided to hop a train and go somewhere close and within the range of my commuter pass. I took the Ginza line to Toranomon. I never go to Toranomon these days, but it sounds cool so I decided to give it a try.

I wandered off the main drag and into the side streets. The stories of a city are told in the side streets. And even in the middle of the day, side streets are dark - hiding in the shadows of tall buildings. If there's a cool photo to be found in the middle of the day, you can bet that its hiding down a side street.

But this time I really couldn't find anything interesting.  And then I looked up.  Apparently, some of the most interesting views in Toranomon are straight up.  There are all kinds of options for playing with geometric shapes and lines when you have tall buildings, and a cloudless sky.  Cool.

All images © 2010 by Jason Weddington. Contact me at the_wandering_eye [at] yahoo [dot] com for usage or licensing requests.

Skype for iPhone works on 3G networks!

I just installed the updated Skype for iPhone and got a nice surprise. You can now make voice calls over 3G networks! This was clearly stated in the details for the update, and a pop-up message in the app gives more info.

I installed the update and made a test call to the Skype call testing service. Flawless!

This never used to work. In fact none of the VoIP apps worked over a 3G connection, only on WiFi. What's going on here? I assumed this was a restriction that Apple placed on the device to keep the carriers happy. A quick Google came up with nothing on this recent change, only old articles on how to jailbreak and get VoIP apps to work.

Clicking on details reveals the page below. It seems that Skype-to-Skype calls will be free "at least" until August 2010, and after that there will be a fee. Fee for what? Skype-to-Skype calls are already free, but never worked on a 3G network.

Just speculating wildly here, but maybe Skype will give some of the mentioned monthly feel to Apple, who will then toss a stipend to their carriers to get them to stop crying about VoIP calls killing their (already crumbling) business models?

I logged into my account online and couldn't find any details on the mentioned "mobile subscription." Comment if you know something.

iPad First Impressions

Ok, I've had an iPad for just over two weeks now, so I guess it's time for some first impressions.

Let's start at the very beginning.  The very first thought than ran through my mind when I pulled the thing out of the box was "oh, that's heavy!"  I'd seen the keynote video of Steve Jobs flipping flipping his iPad around like it's a feather.  He either practiced that, or they made a special lightweight version for him to play with.  It's not like it's super heavy, but a little to heavy for comfortable reading while standing up on the train.  I suppose that half of the weight is battery though.  And I'm not sure I'd sacrifice the amazing battery life for a lighter device.

But on to more substantive concerns...  The iPad is basically a big iPod Touch right?  How come the iPod Touch comes with so many built-in apps that were just plain left out of the iPad?

Apps that come with iPod Touch but not iPad:

• Stocks
• Weather
• Voice Memos
• Clock
• Calculator
• Uno (just kidding, I bought that one.  Cool game though)

So what gives?  I'd gotten used to these as staples of iPhone OS.  I'm used to seeing them on my iPod Touch and iPhone.  Why did Apple leave them out of iPad?  I suppose you could argue that with a fuller web browsing experience, you don't really need these apps, or that they spent all their time working on the new YouTube app and didn't have time to re-vamp these once.