October Full Moon: Another Okinawa Festival

Up in the northern hills of Okinawa, Japan the other day we came across this.

Whenever you see those Orion Beer lanterns strung-up a festival is going to happen.

It seems like, every time there's a full moon, somebody has a celebration.

For the sake of simplicity, I'll call this a hand-dancing party.

The gals were just rehearsing for the big event, which takes place tonight.

They were wearing their everyday outfits.

Tonight they will all be dressed-up in white kimonos.

So, I decided, while rehearsal was going on, I'd concentrate on the hands.

There has to be some meaning to the gyrations they put their hands through.

There are a few resources (English) online, about this form of dance.

But, so far, they just look like stuff (ahem-ahum) borrowed from Wikipedia.

What I plan on doing is getting more reliable information for my story.

These gals will be dancing around in circles, tonight, under the full moon.

They will have their hair all done-up in traditional style.

And, be singing some classic songs while they gesture with their hands.

It would really be awesome, if I could catch a photo like the 1st one above.....

.....with a full moon shining down on all those gals, hand-dancing in kimonos !

Dontcha think ?

Travel Photo with a Tip: Drink Ginger Ale without Booze in It !

Surprisingly few people know about Ginger Ale.

For those travelers who are prone to motion sickness it can work wonders.

This morning I was racking my brain trying to think of something to post for my Canadian sweetheart over in Korea on that Travel Photo Thursday thing she always does.

When I ran across the street to get my morning iced-coffee fix, I spotted this can of

Canada Dry Ginger Ale in the soft drink display.

BINGO !

Ginger, is like the greatest motion sickness, natural, sea sickness, herb in the world.

Well, most travelers don't have time to grow their own.

And, it's pretty hard to find gingerbread cookies, any of the places I've been.

But, Ginger Ale can be found almost anywhere.

Just don't do what some of my friends do with it.  Leave the booze out and drink it straight.

There's no sense traveling around looking like a drunk sailor.

A recent trip to the island of Kudaka-jima, and watching some of the sad faces bouncing around on the ferry,  reminded me of this old home remedy.

So, I grabbed my backpack and shot this can for you and TRAVEL PHOTO THURSDAY.

Learn more about Ginger here: BUT, HAVE YOUR CREDIT CARD READY.

Wikipedia needs help and if everybody donates Twenty-Five bucks that'd be great.

We can keep getting it FREE for another year that way.

I LOVE IT !

Flower Lovers, Are These Humongous Coleus Plants or What ?

Zooming up the highway as if we were a couple of escaped convicts, THE GOYA REPUBLIC GUY and I almost missed these flower thingies today.  It's Wednesday in Okinawa, Japan and that means get-as-far-away-as-fast-as-you-can-with-the-cameras-before-a-missus-starts-thinking-of -things-to-do-around-the-house.

Cruising at what some folks would consider to be a legal speed, I spotted these bright colored plants.  I'm not sure if they should be called flowers.  Some of them were the size of pumpkins.

When we decelerated enough to turn around and park the batmobile I grabbed two cameras and ran across HWY58.  This shot was taken with the Pentax K5 at f/11  1/500  ISO 400.

Then, I approached the things from the south to snap this photo using the Canon G12 at f/8   1/60  ISO 100.

Now, I might not know my flowers and I'm just guessing these critters are some kind of humongous Coleus Plants. 

Cameras, I know a little bit about so, I'm starting to run that G12 through some tests.

The first thing I did was get it out of AUTO MODE and switch to RAW FILES.

This photo was taken with the K5 on a tripod, using a shutter release cable and standing on the highway where motorcycles were buzzing by me at twice the speed of Doc's batmobile.

It was also a bit windy so, I shot the Pentax at f/8  1/400  ISO 200.

Using the Canon G12, handheld and resting on top of the Pentax mounted on the tripod, I shot this at f/3.5  1/500  ISO 100.

Just in case you haven't already guessed, I'm putting that little devil through some tests.

The colors that came out of the camera when it was fired in fully AUTO MODE were kind of disappointing, to me.  But, they look fine here.  Maybe, the genius operating the camera did something like bump a white balance setting by mistake.  Who knows ?

This is another shot made with the Pentax at f/11  1/500  ISO 200.

Before getting safely off the highway I snapped one more quick shot with the G12.

Not exactly laboratory conditions, the wind was blowing but, that's what happens, sometimes in real life.  Camera specs:  f/3.5  1/640  ISO 100.

So far, I'm impressed with the results the little Canon G12 is giving me but, it'll take a few months to give it one of my Mad Mike's Reviews.

Now, back to those flower thingies.

If some of the flower lovers out there can help me, we can help the WIKIPEDIA FOLKS, TOO.

They seem to have some material missing from their references on Coleus Plants.

Is anybody a flower or Coleus expert ?

All I want to know about the plants I shot today is:

ARE THESE HUMONGOUS COLEUS PLANTS OR WHAT ?

Sunday's Silly Sign (Photos) Plus: The Silly Wiki Stuff in Japan

On Easter Sunday we don't really get into the Easter Bunny, eggs hunts, chocolate mess and all that stuff over here in Okinawa. Some people go to church and wear Easter Bonnets, I guess.

 That'd be down around the big cities. I only know it's Easter from people online wishing me a happy one.

Anyway, I went back up in the northern mountains to see what I could find for today's blog and came across this sign warning you, if you don't watch your step, you might fall on your butt.

There are plenty of places along this trail where you could slip, trip, stumble or fall and plenty of these signs to warn you. The silly signs just didn't do the trick for me today.

I hiked all over the mountains and just couldn't find anything that cracked me up.

After getting out of the dark jungles and into some decent sunlight I came across a pond with these critters in it and figured, maybe, they were some kind of endangered species.

When a couple of them got real close to each other I got thinking, "Oh boy, we're gonna see some action".


But, all they did was check each other's packages, sniff, or whatever they do and went their separate ways.

When I got out of the woods and off the nature trail I went and asked this nature dude if he could give me the name of these critters I had on my camera. I was hoping they were some kind of endangered species and I wanted a scientific name so I wouldn't have to do so much research when I got home.

"Shirikenimori", he tells me and he helped me translate it from his Japanese wildlife book into English.

Together we came up with "Shi Ri Ken I Mori" and he made sure I wrote it down in proper English.

And he made sure I returned his pencil.  It almost went in my pocket.

Nice guy, he was. He even spoke a little English and was very helpful. 

But, he didn't have a scientific name for the critter. No problem, I Google stuff.

That lead me to plenty of sources but, my favorite source was Wikipedia Japan.  This just made my day because I hadn't had a good belly-laugh like this in awhile. So, I'll quote directly from the Wiki folks in Japan and post a link and hope they don't mind.  I want them to take full credit for this masterpiece:

"Shirikenimori (newt ass sword, sword蠑螈ass, Cynops Ensicauda ), the animal phylum Chordata Class Amphibia Caudata Salamandridae newt species are classified as urodele."

My guess is maybe they couldn't afford an educated translator so, they just grabbed somebody out of a bar.  Like they were in a hurry to finish their Wikipedia homework.
So, they found some homeless dude or a drunk sailor and asked, "What would you call this tail sticking out of this newt ?  It looks like a sword to us." 

So, the dude says, "Oh, call it a newt ass sword.  That's what I'd do."  So, that's what they did !

It's all RIGHT HERE.  You can call me old-fashioned.  I would have thought something like "sword tail" would have gotten the job done.  And it wouldn't have sounded so silly.  It did CRACK ME UP !

It turns out, the Cynops ensicauda (Shirikenimori) or, Sword-tail Newt, is an endangered species found in Okinawa, Japan.  I'll be heading back up that way to try and get some better photos, now that I know where they can be found.  I'll keep my eyes open for more silly signs while I'm on the highways.


Visit my Homepage for THE PHOTO OF THE DAY

Earth Hour 26 March 2011: A Global Event (Photo)

The big event takes place this Saturday, 26 March 2011 and I just found out about it so, I went and shot this photo of my globe for you. National Geographic sends me a daily email about what's going on around the world in their Intelligent Travel Blog. I saw something about Earth Hour started back about 2007 in Australia.

Well, either the Intelligent Travel Blog or me is being hacked my some spammers. I can't read the whole article because some frickin' pop-up keeps poppin-up on their site. It won't let me scroll down the page to read the whole story. Somebody give them a holler for me, OK ?

Our good friends at WIKIPEDIA give some history about Earth Hour and tell you which countries around the world have been participating, how many people turned off their lights and give you all kinds of links on the subject.  They say 8:30 to 9:30 this Saturday night is when the event takes place.

If you go the EARTH HOUR HOMEPAGE they plan on taking the global event beyond one hour to demonstrate their concern for the people going through the disasters in Japan.  That sounds like a great idea to me. "日本の皆さん、勇気を持って頑張って下さい"
I borrowed that phrase from the Earth Hour people because it's too hard for me to type. It means "Japan hang-in there", I think.

To me, Earth Hour should be every hour, everyday.  Just like I think World Water Day should be everyday. But, tonight I'll do something special for this global event, just to show my support.

Normally, I unscrew half the lightbulbs to try and keep my electric bill down. It drives the Missus absolutely bananas. I'm going to unscrew a few more and, if I think I can get away with it, unplug the refridgerator for a couple of hours, too. Hah !

Now don't go overboard and burn your house down stumbling around in the dark with lit candles but, let me know what you plan on doing for Earth Hour this Saturday night.

Visit my Homepage for THE PHOTO OF THE DAY

Horse Meat: Ever Been So Hungry You Could Eat A Horse ?

Yeah, I remember hearing "He eats like a horse", "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" and "He has the stomach of a horse", meaning "He can eat almost anything."  So, I had this picture of a horse laying around collecting digital dust, decided to post it here and did my research.
Guess what I found out today?  Lots of people eat horses!

What I  learned by consulting my good friends over on the WIKIPEDIA CHANNEL is over 700,000 tons of horse meat was produced in 2005 and they whacked over four million horses worldwide to provide enough horse meat to ship out to the countries where horses are eaten.

Have you ever been so hungry that you could eat a horse?

What's An Eisa Dance?

Living in Okinawa for over half my life I sometimes forget that things I may see everyday and take for granted would be news to folks back on the other side of the world.   Eisa Dancing?

It's something that has its roots in Buddhist Culture and has to do with Ancestor Worship, old time religious ceremonies, stuff Priests and Priestesses would do at funerals.

There ain't no sense in me trying to explain all the morbid details here when you can Google or Wiki-whatever and see what the experts have to say.

This time of year I get real busy running all over the island trying to keep up with all the Festivals going on and catch as many photos as I can to share with the world. There aren't enough hours in the day for me to keep shooting, developing and posting new material, daily on my blog and website so, I get caught recycling not-so-new material, every now and then.

Well, this picture and the one on my Homepage are brand-spanking new, shot last night, just down the street from where I live.

In fact, I have to chase these gals down and get them to sign Model Releases. I don't throw anybody's photos out for public viewing without their consent, usually.

These gals are no problem. They want their photos on my website. They know, once they sign my Release Forms, they'll get a High-Gloss Print for free and maybe even a framed picture of them will adorn the walls of my bar.

There will be a crowd of anywhere from 30-50 of these characters filling-up my little karaoke bar , singing and drinking 'til the wee hours, every weekend from now until the end of Summer.

See, they're regular customers of mine and if I get any complaints about the photography it'll be from the ones who didn't get their picture taken, not those who did get captured on digital film.

During Obon, the season where all this dancing and drum-beating originated, they even bring the whole gang of twenty-some year olds inside my bar and perform, making a racket that'll split the ceiling plaster.

If you want to know more about Eisa Dancing and see a variety of photos, some that may surprise you, have a peek at Matador Network. I've got to charge my batteries, clean some lenses and get back out on the road before Summer ends.

Photography Tips for Foreign Festivals

Showing up at a Festival in a foreign country with a notepad and camera could be a recipe for disaster. If you want to leave a remote village with a great story and photos to document it these tips may be helpful:

1. RESEARCH
Months in advance I start my research. Check as many sources on and offline as you can. You will find differences and sometimes come away with more questions than answers; that's good. You want to document the truth.

2. TRANSLATOR
Even if you speak the language a translator comes in handy. The best documentation may be written in a foreign language and in many cases, just as in the spoken word, local dialects and ancient scripts may make your college language skills useless.


3. VISIT THE LOCATION
On-site visits, months in advance, if possible, are a big bonus. Study the terrain, position of the sun, find the village office, determine the dates, times and locations where events will take place. Plan ahead, look for stores, water supplies and a place to sleep.

4. MAKE FRIENDS
Starting with the village office clerk or groundskeeper, smile, let them know what your intentions are and be respectful. Tell them you want to learn and document their culture, if it's permissible. Most places I've been people go out of their way to assist me. Usually, I'm introduced to VIPs like the Village Chief, Elders, Historian, Mayor or the author of a book on the topic I'm documenting.

Don't limit yourself to just the City Office entourage, the farmer in the field, fisherman, an old couple sitting in a park, children playing and even, the town drunk, all have stories to tell about the festival.
Introduce yourself, get people used to you being around with a camera. They will be more comfortable around you the day of the big event. You may be able to get some photos where participants pose for you in perfect lighting, without them being self conscious, as they would be around a total stranger.

5. SPEND A LITTLE MONEY
Shopkeepers, markets and vendors are all great sources of infomation and more likely than not, related in some way to the folks you met in #4 above. Have a meal or two, buy some local produce, get some snacks and drinks at the little Mom and Pop Stores. Ask about local lodging if you're not planning on pitching a tent. Learn the customs. It may be appropriate to bring gifts. You won't know until you ask.

The photo above was taken in the Village Office at Shioya Bay, Ogimi in Okinawa, Japan. It is of a photo taken at a previous  UNJAMI FESTIVAL. The Festival takes place August 29th this year.

Wikipedia Dude says the festival takes place in July and the guys in the boat are priestesses. I've only made three visits to Ogimi and will attempt two more so when I'm done with my Photo Essay it will resemble a true story!