While you can see Mt. Fuji from many places in Kofu (Yamanashi Ken) on a clear day, it doesn’t look this big without using a photography technique called perspective distortion. This “trick” is not difficult and doesn’t require Photoshop or any other editing. Merely have people, or some other object which has a standard size, at a distance from the camera, zoom or use a focal length of 150mm or more, and then have the very distant object behind these objects. Perspective distortion will then make the very distant object (in this case Mt. Fuji) look much larger than what the natural eye sees. For another example of perspective distortion see this prior entry showing Mt. Fuji from central Tokyo.

Posted on June 5th, 2011 under Japan. Tags: kofu, mt. fuji, photography. Comments: 1

One of the first things I ever followed on Twitter was Japan_Blogs way back in 2008. For some reason Japan_Blogs stopped working for a month or two, but now it appears to be back in business. With about 24,000 followers I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who missed it. My blog is one of the blogs listed in Japan_Blogs which means I’m now getting an extra few hundred hits a day with its revival. I doubt they are taking new blogs. It isn’t even possible to communicate with the owner as far as I can tell.

Anyway, there are a couple other blogs not listed on Japan_Blogs which I also follow and you may enjoy too.

Chuchai’s Baruto Mania
ShootTokyo

Today’s photo is of a very crowded Heiwa Street in Kofu. I must have walked this street thousands of times during my eight months in Kofu. The reason for the masses on this occasion was they were all waiting for the Takeda Shingen Parade to begin.

Posted on May 18th, 2011 under Japan. Tags: japan links, kofu. Comments Off on @Japan_Blogs is back

Just your average scene in modern Japan–shrines, cherry blossoms, and samurai. Believe it or not, turning around from where I took this picture (武田神社) resulted in a view of Mt. Fuji as well. Ho hum.

Posted on February 11th, 2011 under Japan. Tags: cherry blossoms, kofu, people, sakura. Comments: 1

Bet you didn’t know they had cameras back in the age of the samurai. This was Japan after all. What did you expect?

Posted on December 10th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: kofu, people. Comments Off on Samurai

It’s time to finally wrap up this series on the Takeda Shingen Festival I went to in Kofu last month. I’ll probably share some more photos from my day in Kofu later, but not in the near future.

I waited around with many other people for about an hour for the promised fireworks. They were to be fired off from the top of the castle site. Very cool I thought. However, the firework show lasted less than 1 minute. I kid you not. I’ve witnessed longer fireworks after home runs at baseball games.

The wait could have been worse were it not for all of the typical Japanese festival food available. What would you like? Yakisoba? Ramen? Takoyaki? Kakigori? Okonomiyaki? Udon? Yakitori?

Posted on May 6th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: festivals, fireworks, food, kofu, matsuri, night photography. Comments Off on Wrapping up the Takeda Shingen Festival