Year Ago This Month: Kyoto

​Here are a few shots I took during Amy's and my trip to Kyoto this time last year. These were all shot on film:

Elemental Totems

​Traven Pelletier of BLOOM! Garden Center and Traven Pelletier Environmental Art is currently exhibiting his monumental sculptures at the Malton Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio!

These steel columns were cut with a plasma cutter, polished to design, painted, and fit on a base with an LED fixture illuminating the columns. The light fall-off from the base creates an amazing gradient of color:

A Year Ago Today...

A visit to a mountaintop Shinto temple, Ikaho hot springs, and Haruna Lake: The roof of the Shinto temple.

Shinto temple in Kanagawa, Ota, Japan.

Gates at the temple called "torii" in Japanese.

As you walk through the torii gates towards the temple, you are meant to be walking from the mundane to the sacred. 

Amy and I looking over the Japanese Alps in Shibukawa, Japan

Holding out.

Wider.

Walking around a frozen Lake Haruna.

Landscape version.

Amy and I at the Stone Steps in Ikaho hot springs town. The water and steam behind her is the water flowing down from the spring at the top of the mountain. It's hot and filled with minerals that the Japanese believe are healing. There were public footbaths higher up.

Narrow streets and shops in the town.

Entrance to some kind of pork restaurant.

Looking down at the town. I wish I had a shot (that wasn't washed out) looking up at the town but the afternoon sun washed em all out :(. Then youd get a better idea of what the town looks like. The whole town is just located aside the steps leading up the hill peaking at the hot spring. Very cool. It's filled with souvenir shops, street food, onsens (bathhouses), etc.

Town.

Souvenirs

Documentary Portraits

A few of my favorite documentary portraits I took during the past few years of traveling:

Kali Robbie / Nikon N8008 / Fujifilm 200

Tigger's Gazebo / Nikon N8008 / Ilford XP2 Super 400

Spring in Japan, 2011

Amy and I arrived in Japan during the spring of 2011. There were flowering trees in every corner:

But they didn't last long enough! The cherry blossoms lasted for about 2-3 weeks, the hills lost their pink and then we were in the middle of a hot, hot, and humid Japanese summer.

Kiryu, Japan

Kiryu, Japan is a college town 3 hours north of Tokyo. It is known for having the greatest amount of pre-war architecture in Japan. These are a few photos from a day-trip to Kiryu, Japan: