We have friends in our church small group who visit Japan at least once, and more often than not, twice a year. It’s been about nine years since both Ling and I have visited Japan, and that was without bringing the about one year old Hannah then. There’s indeed a lot to see in the islands, though the general suitability of food, sights and climate for a pair of young kids alongside the overall costs for a not very short vacation have meant that we’ve deferred our plans to make a trip there these few years. I reckon our kids are a bit more ready for cold climates at least, now that they’ve survived two vacations in Australia during winter.
Still; I was revisiting the photos I took during our 2009 and 2010 trips to Kyushu and Kansai regions, including the versions of the photos I posted on my blog entries then. My post-processing skills was at novice level ten years ago, so I took about a dozen samples from the 1,185 and 3,739 I took in the two trips respectively and re-touched them in Lightroom to see how my tastes in a post-processing have changed in the last decade. The cameras I used back on both trips were the Nikon D300 with the Sigma 18-250mm and Olympus E-PL1 with the 14-42mm kit lens. I still have all the original .NEF RAW files for the Nikon D300 though not the E-PL1. So, all the samples posted were taken on the D300. The period of travel was December in both trips.
Sample #1 @ Kumamoto Park: ISO200, 18mm, f7.1, 1/200s. Adjustments were Contrast +44, Highlights -100, Shadows +59, Vibrance +5, Saturation +5, Dehaze +65. This park sits alongside the famous Kumamoto Castle which unfortunately suffered serious damage during the April 2016 earthquake, and is since undergoing repair work still. I’d just arrived in the city, and after dropping off my luggage at the KKR Hotel Kumamoto just opposite the park, spent an hour exploring the area. Most of the trees have shed their leaves during that December month, but there were still bits of color from the recent autumn to be found. The weather was clear but overcast. The Dehaze slider couldn’t do very much, so my adjustments were largely to add a bit of color to both pictures.
Sample #2 @ Kumamoto Park: ISO200, 38mm, f6.3, 1/160s. Adjustments were Exposure +0.50EV, Contrast +16, Highlights -100, Shadows +34, Vibrance +8, Saturation +8, Dehaze +60.
Sample #3 @ Suizenji Garden: ISO200, 18mm, f6.3, 1/160s. Adjustments were Contrast +30, Highlights -100, Shadows +83, Vibrance +6, Saturation +6, Dehaze +56. Original Blog post here. There aren’t very many well-known and visited places of interest in Kumamoto City: basically, it’s just the castle, the Suizenji Garden, and finally the Former Hosokawa Residence. I had a free day just before I returned home, so spent it exploring this Japanese-styled and landscaped garden, then headed to the Mansion next. This was early morning – around 8:30AM – and like the other days of my trip, the weather was clear but overcast. The garden is beautiful, though because it’s set in a built-up environment, it wasn’t easy composing a picture without having the inevitable apartment block in the picture too!
Sample #4 @ Former Hosokawa Residence: ISO280, 18mm, f3.5, 1/50s. Adjustments were Exposure +0.50EV, Contrast +41, Highlights -100, Shadows +40, Vibrance +4, Saturation +11, Dehaze +19. Original Blog post here. The former Hosokawa Residence also sits in Kumamoto park, though this samurai mansion was originally from a different location in the 19th century. It’s beautifully restored, and I remembered being about just the only visitor to the place at around noon time. The D300 correctly exposed the fairly dark interiors of the room, if at the expense of the outdoor view – but Lightroom helped retrieve quite a bit of detail.
Sample #5 @ Bamboo Grove: ISO1400, 18mm, f3.5, 1/100s. Adjustments were Contrast +20, Highlights -100, Vibrance +14, Saturation +23, Dehaze +76. Original Blog post here. This and the remaining photos were taken during our 10 day trip to Kobe-Kyoto-Osaka the following year in 2010. The Bamboo Grove in Arashiyama is one of the most photographed spots in Kyoto, and famous for its mystical serenity – if you’re able to visit on an uncrowded day that is! Despite what the photo here suggests, we weren’t the only visitors about the weekday mid-morning we were there. I just had to wait for the right moment for this particular pathway to clear when I took my shots. Looking at my Facebook feed these days though, it seems a lot harder now to take pictures of the Grove without having other visitors in the backdrop, so I’m glad I’ll always have this photo from 2010. Like the 2009 trip to Kumamoto, our 2010 trip was also in the month of December – where we had clear but overcast days with little sunlight.
Sample #6 @ Katsura Imperial Villa: ISO200, 24mm, f6.3, 1/160s. Adjustments were Contrast +21, Highlights -83, Vibrance +6, Saturation +8, Dehaze +71. Original Blog post here. This and the next two pictures were taken at the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto, one of several such villas in Japan that belong to Royalty. Entry into the Villa and its grounds is by appointment-only, and I remember that our group was chaperoned front and back by two elderly Japanese men. I liked this villa better than the other one we visited later that same day and also in Kyoto, Shugakuin Imperial Villa. There’s quite an explosion of colors already in the out-of-camera RAW picture below.
Sample #7 @ Katsura Imperial Villa: ISO200, 44mm, f6.3, 1/100s. Adjustments were Contrast +9, Highlights -100, Shadows +42, Vibrance +8, Saturation +10, Dehaze +54. A stone lantern on the banks of the bank provides an interesting subject to the pond’s still waters. The sun was ducking in and out of the cloud layer, but when it does show up – like in this and the previous pictures – the colors out of camera really pop-out!
Sample #8 @ Katsura Imperial Villa: ISO200, 50mm, f9.0, 1/200s. Adjustments were Contrast +14, Highlights -100, Shadows +31, Vibrance +8, Saturation +7, Dehaze +59.
Sample #9 @ Isuien Garden: ISO720, 18mm, f3.5, 1/80s. Adjustments were Contrast +9, Highlights -100, Shadows +38, Vibrance +20, Saturation +30, Dehaze +50. Original Blog post here. We took a day trip out from Kyoto to Nara, and visited two gardens; the Yoshikien Garden, and also Isuien Garden where these two samples are from. There was a slight drizzle the early afternoon we visited, but some careful post-processing can still bring out the beauty of these gardens.
Sample #10 @ Isuien Garden: ISO220, 18mm, f3.5, 1.80s. Adjustments were Exposure +0.25EV, Contrast +12, Highlights -100, Shadows +31, Vibrance +10, Saturation +10, Dehaze +51. A desktop wallpaper-worthy picture!
This is a pretty fun series to do; revisiting photos I took years ago and post-processing them once again. I’ll probably do another one soon, and taken from the three week trip to New England in 2010!
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