Year of the Dragon

The focus (pun intended) of this blog is photography.
The photo below gives a good hint about the title of this post.

I recently moved from North Carolina, USA, to the northern Japan island of Hokkaido.

The next shot taken by my wife, shows me purifying my hands and hopefully my soul for the new year, at the Shinto Shrine in Iwamizawa City.

As any serious photographer knows, it is nearly impossible to get the shots you want while accompanied by your spouse on a recreational outing.

So I came back the next day with my craiglist purchased 100mm F-2 Minolta AF lens mounted on my Sony A-55 to shoot some more
serious photos.

I hunkered down for this handheld shot of the purifying water.  I thought it was OK, but not the best.  So the next day and my third visit to the shrine, I brought my carbon fiber Gitzo tripod and my 2.8, 100mm Minolta Macro lens.  Of course by then the cleansing springs were covered with a blue tarp and most of the festivities packed away for next year, leaving me few inspirational subjects.
    As I started home, I was thinking there would not be anything much to shoot.  Then I remembered that a "real" photographer would not have such thoughts.  I turned the corner and found this ice formation on the side of the street.

I tried a few angles to catch the sunset colors in the back or a dark background of cedar trees.

These were also shot hand-held, the light was fading fast and there was knee deep snow to deal with.

The moral of the story if you cannot find something worth shooting, you probably should take up another hobby.  One of my favorite photography authors back in the ancient day of film, Freeman Patterson, used to have work-shop students shoot whatever was found in a hoop made from a coat hanger thrown randomly in a field.
    All that glitters is not gold.....but a Dragon's tooth can be found if you are willing to look it in the mouth....

Til next time... keep your lenses clean and your eyes open!