Foxes of Inari 稲荷の狐

While most shrines in Japan have guardian lions flanking the altar, shrines to Inari have foxes.

I was nearly locked in at this shrine, as I had entered through a side entrance while the priest was making his rounds locking the doors.  I made my way through the shrine; taking the above photographs and found the front entrance where I had planned to exit locked.  Wondering how I was going to get back to the streets I made my way back to where I had come in... Just in time to see the priest pocket the keys after bringing down a storefront type shutter/door and locking the attached pad lock.  After a furious bout of kung-fu fighting*, he graciously opened the gate to allow me out.


*may or may not have actually happened

Wisteria - 藤

Sannomiya - 三宮 Movie sets

Some scenes near Sannomiya in Kobe were as though they were movie sets.

Wonderfully organic looking air conditioning conduits + cross processing filter:

Blade Runner or perhaps Aliens

Dust and desaturation: a still from an animated film

Dragon!

 

Transit of Venus

I had originally thought was not successful in recording this event but thanks to a friend complaining that he did not get anything in his shots, I took another look at mine.  One of the shots was successful, though using a 50mm lens it was rather small, Venus being about two pixels or so on the sensor.

 Super cropped but still visible.

Offerings

Sayama Shrine in Tondabayashi.  

狭山神社富田林

In addition to the red and white ropes on the feet of the a pair of guardian statues, all of the guardian statues and stone lanterns had had coins placed upon them.

Annular Eclipse 2012

On May 21, 2012 an annular solar eclipse was visible from Japan to the west coast of the USA.

I was fortunate enough to take these pictures at Gokuraku Temple in Kawachinagano, Osaka.

It was a truly spectacular sight, though there was a bit of cloud in the sky (which added to the pictures), for the most part the skies were cloud free.

 The Kawachinagano Daibutsu.

A composite image of the eclipse.  Not the actual path.

 Annular Eclipse maximum.

 

Not everything was exposed properly:

Light leaking through the aperture blades with lens flares, but I still like it.