Neighbours

I live in a quiet neighbourhood within a fairly quiet city. There is a part of the downtown area that stays busy late into the night, but for the most part, when I walk down the streets of Iwaki after 8 or 9 o’clock, there are very few people on the road. Even Friday and Saturday nights are quiet.
My apartment is generally very quiet as well. Some of my neighbours in the building across from me moved out recently. There used to be a young couple with a small boy living there, but now there’s just a clothing rack full of dresses and a small stereo component lying on the floor. They were the few people that I would see come and go during the day, although I was never outside at the same time as them, so I never got the chance to say hello. Now, I rarely see any of my neighbours. The parking lot only ever has about 7-8 cars in it and whenever one of my teacher’s drops me off, he always asks me, “why are there never any cars in this parking lot?” One of these days I’ll have an answer for him.

I live in a corner apartment, so I only have one neighbouring unit, which I know people live in because every weekday I can hear someone coming home and punching in their door-code just before eleven o’clock. They also play a lot of video games, which I know because their living room is on the other side of my bedroom wall and I can hear them playing whenever they’re home. There’s also someone who lives below me who I saw shortly after I first arrived in Japan. He was parking his bike beside where I usually park mine – under the stairs, when I rode up behind him and said “konichiwa.” After glancing at me, he quickly jumped around the corner and went into his apartment.

I sometimes see people coming or going in their car when I’m also coming or going, but I rarely see anybody face-to-face to say ‘hi.’

The other day it rained all day only to let up in the evening when I went to grab some groceries for the next day. Walking through the streets at night is usually quite nice because it’s so quiet – kind of like when it first snows and everybody stays indoors. On the way back I noticed that the lights from all of the buildings and streetlights were reflecting off of the pavement very nicely and I could see white clouds hanging low in the sky; I had a feeling it would be a good night to take some photos. I spent about an hour walking up and down the streets of my neighbourhood and got a few good shots. There was still a light drizzle, which got on my lens, but the light reflecting off of these spots I don’t think was a total loss. A clean lens might have been ideal, but the raindrops added a bit of a cool effect.

***As usual, please click on each photo to see it in a larger/better format!***

The Hunter

The nights have been a bit chilly lately, but the skies have been very clear. On my way home from a buddy’s place, The stars were brighter than I’ve seen them for a while. Despite it being late, I had to try to get a few images. I’ve never taken photos of stars before – I always thought that it would be very difficult. I’ve read a bit about astrological photography; aside from the expensive glass, the pros use cameras with built-in cooling systems to minimize any heat vibrations. They also mount their cameras to tripods specially aligned to the earth’s axis and that have mechanisms that can be automated to compensate for the Earth’s rotation by minutely turning the camera. These photographers can expose for whole nebulas and star clusters that are barely visible to the human eye.

With my camera setup, I’ll settle for this exposure of Orion. It’s a 10 second exposure at 4.5 aperture and 800 ISO. Already there is some motion blur in the image, but the overall shape is there and even the colours of the stars are visible.

Aside from the iconic belt that is made up of three stars, the constellation features Betelgeuse, which is a red giant and said to be the 12th brightest star in the sky and is located at Orion’s right shoulder (it’s the reddish star in the centre near the top of the image). It is reaching the end of its life and when it explodes, it will be visible even during the daytime.

Rigel is another prominent star in the constellation and forms the left foot of Orion (it’s near the centre at the bottom of the image). Rigel is the 6th brightest star in the sky.

Even though Orion is probably the most iconic of constellations in the sky, I can’t say that it’s my favorite. Yet, seeing it in the sky here in Japan is comforting. For me, Orion reminds me of coming home from band practice on Monday or Thursday nights with my dad and my brother. I’d either be carrying my saxophone or my trombone, after stepping out of the van and walking up the front steps to the house. Maybe it was while I was walking up the steps that I’d look up and see the Big Dipper and realize that the stars were out, or maybe it was while we were standing at the top of the stairs waiting for my dad to unlock the front door that I would turn around and see Orion standing to the south overtop of the house across the street. Whatever the reason, the image even smells like autumn band practices.