I snapped this picture from our hotel room the other morning. It's not a great shot technically or even artistically, but I love it. There are so many little stories here: the happy couple and their friends, the old guys at the back chatting amongst themselves, the woman in the geisha just out of the top of the frame getting her photo taken, the ladies at the back of the crowd laughing.

I snapped this shot last week near Houhai (the old Beijing lakes area behind the Forbidden City.)

 

Captions anyone?

Last week, we went back to Beijing to finalize stuff for our move there. We also spent two days at the very lovely Commune by the Great Wall resort (more on that later). This resort is just downhill from an unrestored section of the Great Wall (the section is called Shuiguan). Andrew (10) and I made the quarter mile hike up to the wall and then walked along the quarter mile section that was open (a fence at the end prevented hikers from getting to the really dangerous collapsed sections.

The unrestored sections of the Wall are very different from the restored parts. These "wild" parts have trees and grass growing on top, the walls and towers are partially crumbled, and the walking surface is broken up. There are only a few places where they've installed safety measures like a hand rail on very steep sections. I actually quite like these parts of the Wall better.

Although the sky was hazy, it was still very picturesque given the mountainous terrain and the fall foliage. Andrew and I really enjoyed it.

Here are a few photos for your enjoyment.

 
Beautiful fall foliage and the Great Wall.

 

Trees, grass, and shrubs growing on top of the Great Wall.

 

Andrew on top of a guard tower with a collapsed roof.

 

 
Andrew about to climb a very steep section of the Great Wall.

Barbi, Kellie, and I decided to take advantage of our jet lag and go to the Tsukiji Fish Market early (5:30am) this morning (this isn't a great place for kids, so Michelle and the boys stayed at the hotel). This is the largest fish market in the world and an amazing scene of commerce and food. I had been to Tsukuji many years ago, but I was excited to come back.

In the intervening years, they have apparently had an influx of tourists getting in the way of operations. As a result, in the tuna auction area, they now have an area blocked off for tourists and rules about flash photography. I've read that they may be closing the whole thing off to tourists; while this makes perfect sense, it would be too bad.

Anyway, the big thing here is the tuna auction where they sell off huge frozen and fresh tuna. The buyers walk around inspecting the fish and then the auctioneer starts the sing-song bidding. In a few seconds, a huge tuna is sold. Click here for an idea of the prices. Beyond the auction area, the place is a maze of shops selling everything seafood related that you can imagine; the shops also cut down the big tuna they just bought for further sale. The auction area and shops are in a huge warehouse known as the inner market.

The outer market is a series of streets and alleys selling more food like pickles, spices, and such as well as cooking supplies like the big knives the guys in the inner market use. There are also crazy good food stalls and restaurants serving the freshest fish from the market. After our tour, we had a bowl of maguro donburi (fresh tuna slices on a bowl of sushi rice) at Kanno, a stall four booths from the corner of Shin Hashi Dori and Harumi Dori (the main intersection near the market). It was super good, with the super fresh tuna and lovely sushi rice. Click here for a good New York Times article on restaurants in the area.

 

 

 

 

We decided to check out the Omotesando and Harajuku area, starting with the lovely Meiji Shrine area. As explored this huge park, we discovered an extra bonus - the irises were blooming in the garden. While this was lovely, it did mean that the park was flooded with tour buses full of people checking out the flowers.

We then strolled around Takeshita Street (where the cool kids shop), Omotesando Street (where the rich people shop), had a great lunch at Jangara Ramen, took a long exploration of Kiddy Land - a huge toy store - where the boys loaded up on Bakugan,  then walked through Aoyoma to get to Shibuya where we saw the big crush at Shibuya crossing, and then went back to the hotel. Whew.

The whole area was pretty cool, even on a Wednesday. The contrasts between the Meiji Shrine, Takeshita, and Omotesando were really striking as we went from serene iris gardens to hip Tokyo youth culture to the elegant "Champs-Elysees" of Tokyo in a few blocks.

I've been shooting my venerable Canon 10D for 4.5 years now; it's been a great camera and honestly, it's still better than I am. In most ways, my photography is not limited by the camera. However, I'm a gear junkie as much as a photographer; it's been hard to resist all the exciting new cameras that have come out these past few years, so I finally gave in and bought the new 40D.

I haven't had a chance to really put it through its paces yet, but so far, I love it. One of the limitations I did run into with the 10D was the frame rate; when I'm shooting the kids or an event like a sailboat race, I often missed the "decisive moment" because the 10D was a just a little slow at 3.3 frames-per-second. The 40D's 6.5 fps feels like a machine gun by comparison. Perhaps more frustrating on the 10D was the relatively small buffer size. I'd be blazing away and all-of-a-sudden the camera would stop taking photos once the internal buffer filled up; I'd be sitting there fuming and waiting to get another shot just as the naked supermodels appeared with an honest politician, Bigfoot, and Osama Bin Laden dancing with them. By the time I was ready to shoot again, they'd all be gone. The 40D has a much bigger buffer, so with any luck, I'll be able to get a snap of the elusive Bin Laden...

I'm looking forward to really messing with it some more. Watch for more photos soon...

Mmm hot dogs and beer at the Mariner's game.

I flew down to San Francisco this morning, picked up my red Mustang convertible (may as well enjoy the sunshine), and drove up to my hotel in Santa Rosa before Foo Camp.

On the way up, I stopped at the Golden Gate Bridge on the Marin (northern) end. I have been to the bridge zillions of times, but not too often on the north end and certainly not recently. I really like the view from this side since you can see the bridge and the city behind it. Chooky and I once were on the top of a hill here on the 4th of July and saw a great show, with the fireworks over the bridge and the city behind.

I also checked out some of the old gun batteries; the area is littered with gun emplacements and an old Nike missle battery that were here to protect the bay. I've never really spent much time in this park and want to come back. I got a little lost on the way out of the park and wound up in the cute town of Sausalito. After driving through, I headed up to Santa Rosa, baking in the sun (oh well). I'm in my hotel room now finishing up a few things and then will head over to the O'Reilly campus.

Anyway, I got a few decent shots even though it was mid-day; I changed up the set of lenses I normally carry to force myself to try to shoot differently and to reduce the weight of my gear. I have my Lensbaby, a 24/1.8, and a 70-200/2.8L (yeah, still not light).

 

Last weekend, I shot the Opening Day of boating season. This is an century+ old tradition, put on by the Seattle Yacht Club (my club). It consists of an opening Commissioning Ceremony on the club grounds, the Windermere Cup crew races, and a big boat parade. There are also a bunch of activities and parties leading up to Opening Day and afterwards. It's an altogether big deal.

 

Despite having been a member for eight or nine years, I've never been to Opening Day. (I did hang out on a speed boat at the exit of the boat parade one year.) In something of a coincidence, Michelle and I were married on Opening Day a long time ago. It was nice to finally hang out at the club for Opening Day; being the "official" photographer gave me a little something extra to do while I was there.

I took over 1000 photos; a few even turned out OK. Unfortunately, I had smudged my camera's sensor the night before as I was cleaning it and didn't have the right tools to really fix it. It didn't affect most of my shots, but you can see the flecks in a few. Drat.

Easily my favorite boat in the parade was the Elvis boat from the Bremerton Yacht Club. The huge Elvis head looked great; the lips and eyebrows even moved with the music. The crew on board also looked like they were having a blast.

Anyway, I had fun. You can check out more photos here.

Last Friday evening, I got to shoot the Seattle Yacht Club/Anthony's Homeport sailboat race here in Kirkland, like I did two years ago. This time, I didn't have any committee boat responsibilies; I just had to shoot. Along with my colleage Cyra, who is another avid shooter, we got to run around the course in a chase boat taking photos and video of the boats. Sunava, another friend from work, helped on the committee boat. Hard to beat that.

After the race, we watched a little drama unfold at the dock as a huge Argosy tour boat tried to dock at the shallow end of the public dock. I guess they finally got it in, but it wasn't at all obvious that they were going to make it (check out the photo after the link.)

Once all that was done, the committee boat and chase boat folks enjoyed a nice dinner at Anthony's. I have to admit, I kind of poo poo them since they're a chain restaurant, but the food was pretty darn good. I should give them a chance more often.

It was another lovely evening on the water. Click here to see some of the better shots.