Mom's Iris

Beautiful orchid-looking iris that only blooms for 24 hours. I was lucky to be at mom's house this morning to see it bloom.

Hokkaido University in Sapporo

This may be the most beautiful university campus in the world. Wow.

Spent the afternoon wandering the university campus and the museum attached to the science building.

Happy Birthday Mom

Happy Birthday Mom!
幸せな誕生日おかあさん！






Some photos from the Sapporo Botanic Gardens at Hokkaido University.

Ohori Koen

Everything here in Fukuoka is closing for the impending O-bon festival so I spent the afternoon at the city park. There were dragonflies and turtles everywhere, I even saw a few cranes. This one let me get close enough for a few photos. The lily pads were blooming too. Entire ponds full of them were blooming these gigantic white flowers. Anyone know the name of these flowers? [Mom: these are what make those huge cone-shaped seed pods you love.]

Tomorrow I leave for Kumamoto with Yina to celebrate the O-bon matsuri (festival of the dead). I am told there will be fireworks!

Hike to Ouzel Falls

The first time hiking at Wild Basin with Sandie was a mosquito infested nightmare for me. She seemed pleased that I was along to keep the mosquitoes at bay however. We agreed to come back and hike up to Ouzel Falls sometime. I hope she's not mad, but I decided to hike up here on my own since my time in Colorado is growing short.

The wild flowers were amazing! The trail was bordered with flowers of every shade and size. And where there are flowers there are butterflies. I must have been out at the right time on the right day because there were butterflies everywhere. So naturally I went tromping about after them trying to get some photos.

So we'll get up there next time Sandie.

Botanic gardens photo shoot

These are some photos I took at the Denver Botanic Gardens; I was experimenting with the 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor lens that I had bought for my D70. I was pleased with the results but the lesson I learned for next time is to use a tripod. Even with the vibration reduction feature it is difficult to keep things in focus but more importantly it's nearly impossible to keep the image framed and selectively focused with high magnification. A tripod solves all these problems and if the image is worth taking it is worth taking your time to do it properly. The tripod forces you to go a little bit slower.