Some New Angles at the Ginoza Museum in Okinawa

The Map It Okinawa dude dragged me into Okinawa's Ginoza Museum today.

Since I had been there before, I told him I'd wait and not pay to go see the displays.

What the heck. The air conditioning at the entrance was working just fine.

This painting on the wall in the vestibule caught my eye.

So, I asked the museum staff if it would be alright to take a photo of it.

That little card taped to the wall below the frame caught my attention, too.

It says Unjami.  That's an Okinawan religious ceremony, of sorts.

More on that in another post or publication.  I'm always looking for these sort of things.

For ten years, or so, I lived in Ginoza Village but, never heard of an Unjami there.

So, I let RyukyuRu, the Map It Okinawa dude, pay for me to go in the museum.

It was time to try some new angles.

The lighting in these places can be fairly harsh for the cameraman.

But, moving left, right, up and down at different angles can improve the lighting.

Camera angles weren't the only new angles we tried today, though.

Chatting with the museum staff for a good while is an angle we should practice more often.

We left with tons of information that would have taken forever to find on our own.

A big thumbs up to the staff at the Ginoza Museum!

Photo Essay: A Fun-filled Day at the Ginoza Museum

Just as soon as you walk in the door at the Ginoza Museum in Okinawa, Japan you know this isn't going to be some stuffy old place like the British Museum of Natural History.

They have like, normal, everyday people statues waving at you, doing the the dance we call Eisa and a smiling, dancing lion-dog (Shishimai) is right up there on the stage with them.

The first thing I always do is make sure it's alright to shoot my camera.  Lots of museums don't let you so, it's best to ask permission first.  When they say "OK" that's when I know I'm going to have a blast.  I'm real careful about where I set up my tripod so nobody trips over it and I like to shoot photos without any flash.  
Slow and easy with whatever light is available; that's the way to have a fun-filled day of museum photography.  
I shot everybody and everything.

Old hand tools.  Man, what guy doesn't like them?  I bet I have some more rusty and older than these, somewhere out behind the house.  But, these guys were on display for me.

Just behind that cart I was looking at the straw-roofed house and wondering if there was a way I could get inside to have a look around.  Some museums are funny about those sort of things. 

This time I figured it would be best not to ask.

Look.  You can see right through the place and there wasn't a chain or rope across the door.

Everybody was busy doing whatever museum people do and nobody was watching me.

Next thing I know, there I was in the kitchen.

Those were the good old days, when you could barbecue right on the kitchen floor.

This looked like an example of how the first wooden floors were built to get folks up off the ground so they wouldn't get wet or dirty.  But, to me anyway, it looked like it might be real comfortable to lie down on.  
I peeked outside to make sure the museum people kept doing whatever museum people do.  
As long as they weren't watching me, that would be OK.

It felt GREAT but made a heck of a racket when all those bamboo poles started rolling around.

So, I jumped up quick and pretended I was taking a picture of this newer model kitchen fire thingy.  
Nobody came along to yell at me so, I figured it was safe to check out some more stuff.

All the way out the back door of the straw-roofed house there were more tools !

Oh, and that's where some girl hung a mini skirt, or something so, I got that, too.

The best part of my fun-filled day at the Ginoza Museum was finding a Dragon that I had never taken a photo of before.  It's something I'll be adding to my Year of the Dragon collection.

I bet they don't have things like this in the British Museum of Natural History.  If they did, they probably wouldn't let folks like me in there to have fun with my camera !


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