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Hello from Japan! This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.301.
In Japan, it is in 'shoka'(early summer) season, and in 'tsuyu'(rainy season).
In this season, most popular topics are hydrangea and 'hotaru'( firefly ).
We went to Kume-dera Temple, which has the most famous hydrangea garden.
Here is the photos of magical hydrangea.
http://www.funfun-japan.com/index.php?Kume-dera%20Temple%20Hydrangea
And we went for Sonikogen to see firefly.
A few days ago, I checked the internet, and knew the firefly season had come. There are many pages about firefly, and several spots are especially popular and famous in the Kansai district. I decided to go Sonikogen, which is about two hours from our house by car. I would like to take photos of firefly - I wanted to take photos of lights of fireflies as light lines with background of Japanese country scenery (or rice paddies).
As you may know, I bought a digital single-lens reflex camera, and began to take various photos of beautiful Japanese things.
Taking nice photos needs skills, and especially taking photo in the dark is difficult. In the April, I tried to take photos of night cherry blossom under the full moon, but I couldn't take it.
This time, I read magazines and books, and studied how to take photos of firefly in the night. I bought a new tripod stand, extra battery of camera, and a remote switch. To take photos of firefly in the night, I had to open the shutter of camera for more than 10 minutes. So I needed these items.
In a room of our house, I closed all windows and made the room dark completely, and practiced to take photos as magazine told me. I knew I had to prepare a handy light to see the camera and grand part of stand, and drew it out from my fishing gear bag.
Preparation was perfect. Here we go!
After enjoyed the hydrangea, we drove to the south, and get there at 5:30 pm. It is in the Sonikogen mountain, and river runs through the mountain. Road runs besides the river, and we parked our car in the closed down restaurant.
It was too early and we had to wait 2 hours there. I had to check the places where I set camera, because it had to be difficult to look for the places in the dark. We found dry riverbed, and the path to go down to there. The places looked perfect for taking photos.
After I checked it, we didn't have anything to do. However, we had to stay there because, if we left there, other cars (other people who came to see firefly) came and took parking space.
We waited in our car. Several cars came to the same parking space one after another.
And it was getting dark, but I didn't find firefly yet.
Complete dark had come.
Around at 8 pm, and I suddenly noticed that several fireflies became luminous.
And I called Yuka, and we looked magical scene.
Many fireflies were flying over the river with light.
I grabbed my camera and tripod stand, and hurried to the dry riverbed.
However, soon I noticed that headlight of cars lighted the fireflies flying space at intervals. In addition, some people threw the lights of electric torch into the space without care.
I had to open the shutter more than 10 minutes - the light of them had to distinguish the weak lights of fireflies.
I abandoned the space, and hurried to look for other spaces.
The time of fireflies is not long, and lights would become weak after about 1 - 1.5 hour.
We walked up to a tributary valley. It was completely dark, and no one seemed to come.
I set the camera and stand and opened shutter. However, fireflies were very few, and we saw only several fireflies in the five minutes.
I tried once, opened the shutter for five minutes. After shutter was closed, my camera worked to get the noises off. I waited ( it took more than 3 minutes, and was very long time ), and when the noise cleaning ended, I knew the shot was completely failed.
The photo camera showed was completely BLACK.
I thought it was because fireflies were too less and I had to open the shutter more 5 minutes.
We abandoned the spot again.
We walked the road apart from the parking space, and found a ladder to go down to the riverbed. Around there, many fireflies were flying, and there were not other people.
I lighted the ladder, carefully went down to the riverbed.
Where I stood was a plain, not narrow dry river bed, and it seemed to very good place for the shot.
Headlights of cars came at moments, but if I focused upward to the mountain, they seemed to be no problem.
I carefully set my camera on the stand. Because of the darkness, I didn't see nothing through the monitor, so I trained my camera towards the mountain by instinct, and opened the shutter with remote switch, and sit on the ground.
I looked up the magical scene of fireflies flying, and Yuka also looked it from the up on the road.
I waited happily 10 minutes happy in the magical nature activity.
After 10 minutes passed, I closed the shutter, and got back to the road. I held camera and stand and climbed the ladder.
On the road, Yuka asked, 'Did you succeed?'
I answered, 'I think so. If not, I can't take photos of fireflies here anymore.'
We walked back to our car. Firefly flying time seemed to be ending and fireflies became less.
I wanted to look how the photo was soon, but my camera in my shoulder still was still busy and did 'noise reduction'.
It was too long. I waited nearly 5 minutes already. It was strange --
And my fingers touched the lense -- and there was a lense lid on it.
Oh my gods!
I forgot to take the lense lid off!
I waited for ten minutes with opened the shutter, with lense covered with lid!
Camera worked well!
Completely black was correct!
Because of such reason, we can not show you the magical firefly photos.
http://www.funfun-japan.com/index.php?Hotaru-Firefly%20%281%29
Thank you very much for reading to the end. Today we will list some fukusa, uchishiki, haori, yukata & bolts. We are very happy if you can find your favorite among them.
Have a nice early summer day!
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