Darren Holloway

Click here to go to the gallery on flickr.

I’m back at Fanime again this year. My latest kick is “take less photos and thus spend less time in photoshop, and thus be able to post in a reasonable time.”

Click to go to the gallery on Flickr…

Anime I watched that I want to see the rest of…

1. Kara no Kyoukai – The Garden of Sinners
2. Kurokami

I also watched a few episodes of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, which was a show I watched in Elementary school in its bastardized^W westernized version as “Battle of the Planets.” Man, those 70′s haircuts and clothes!

I took a cruise on San Francisco bay last weekend on the USS Potomic, which was FDR‘s yacht back when he was president of the U.S.

The cruise was put on by Keeble and Schuchat, and there were about 60 photographers on the cruise. It didn’t take me long to decide that I wanted to look for shots they weren’t seeing.

I did take the standard photo of the Golden Gate Bridge…

But to be completely honest, I far prefer this shot:

It was pretty windy on the bay

And I have no clever comment for this shot of Alcatraz.

Photos from my November 2009 trip to Japan to photograph the fall colours are now up on Flickr.

I am too lazy to make 110 individual links.

Tomorrow I fly home. Which means today, I took the train from Kyoto to Tokyo, dumped my bag in a locker at Tokyo Station, then headed over to Akihabara to buy stuff and visit the cat cafe.

Yes, the cat cafe – A place where you can have a coffee and play with cats.

After 3 days of trying, I finally found Eikan-do!

Fall colours at Eikan-do, Kyoto, Japan.

I’m in Kyoto and my feet are sore. I’ve been looking for a certain temple for two days now and haven’t been able to find it. Fortunately, I’m finding lots of other nice stuff.

Fall Maple Tree Leaves in Kyoto, Japan

Here in Tokyo, it is (a) cool and (b) raining. It started getting dark around 4:00.

But at least I found my first maple tree in Koishikawa Koraku Park…

Anurag, Rika, and I went to Hakone gardens in Saratoga today for an afternoon of Japanese Tea Ceremonies.

I got tea, sore knees, and a good photo. Overall, this is better than yesterday when I broke a golf club.

In real life, this is about a square centimeter…

Ants actually farm aphids, like cows, for the 'honeydew' they produce; in reality, the honeydew is nothing more than high-sugar aphid poop.

I like California. We have nice vegetables. This will be part of my dinner tonight.

Pepper Family Portrait

Update! Pepper family missing and presumed eaten!

Last known photo of pepper family.

The little red pepper and the light yellow Hungarian pepper next to it were so sweet, they would have been overpowered in the stir fry, so I made tsukemono (Japanese quick pickles) out of them. That’s what’s on the plate to the right.

The camera built into the IPhone is pretty crappy. But then again, sometimes the best camera is the one you have with you at the time…

Demonstrating the highest level of commitment to workplace safety.

When I was in Japan and would eat at a restraunt, this is typical of the meal. 800 yen ~ $8

People learn that certain things are a certain way, like the brake is on the left. Eventually, they develop subconscious affordances such as brake instead of push left foot.
The gas station nearest to me obviously understands the affordance of cheapest button is on the left.

When people don't eat enough shrimp, they grow into these monsters. I think I saw one of them fighting Godzilla.

This is apparently how brussel sprouts grows in the wild - In the form of a club for striking people.

Aphids at work. No, they’re not working; I took this at my office.

A pair of pictures from Japan that I’m slooooowwwwlllllyyyy getting through…

The Sakura are just coming into full bloom now…

Sakura Flowers

Having a great time, glad I’m here.

Darren with cute girls in Tokyo

There’s still no update to the Cherry Blossom forecast for Japan…

However, the Sakura here in Northern California are in full bloom.

This morning I got a much better shot… Click for fullsize.

Everything’s a learning experience. Last night, I learnt a pillow is not an accurate distance reference. This morning, I learnt that a light stand is also not an accurate distance reference, but it’s a whole lot more accurate than a pillow ;)

This is the full setup…

Click on this self portrait for larger view via Flickr. Click on “Original Size” for 10 megapixel file and look deeeepppply into my eyeeeessss….

The story of the picture:

1. Discover that my Canon 5D Mark 2 can output to my television set.
2. Put macro lens on camera. Set for manual focus.
3. Put pillow on chair. Put chin on pillow.
4. Focus camera while looking at television.
5. Take off glasses without moving
6. Click shutter to take picture

This was the best of the approximately 50 times I tried. It is hard to keep your head perfectly still. And my eyeball is still out of focus – the photo appears focussed about 4-5 millimeters in front of my eyeball.

Of course, what’s really creepy is how much the human pupil resembles a sea anemone…

You know what really sucks? Long weekends where it rains on and off the whole time.

That is, unless you have a macro lens… Click on any for a bigger version.