Folsom street fair: devouring hot, stiff meat

The Folsom Street Fair is one of San Francisco's signature events. It's an annual Leather and BDSM street fair, and draws a large crowd both from the subculture and from spectators.

So, at an event like this, packed with public S&M activities, public nudity and more than a few counts of serious public lewdness (I kept a “wanker counter” running during our visit), who am I to turn down the offer to wrap my lips around a hot, stiff, tasty hunk of meat?



Really, it was the least I could do to try and melt in.

Nanzen-ji Sanmon

This entrance gate to the Nanzen-ji temple in Kyoto looks to me a lot like the gate in the Kurosawa movie Rashomon, under which the characters are hiding from the rain.

Skeletal bird

Susanne has an encounter with a skeletal bird, wielding an impressive array of feathers.

Arima Onsen — Golden spring colorations

Arima, just outside Kobe, is an entire city dedicated to the industry of bathing in their hot springs. It's one of the Three Classical Onsen sites, going back to the 7th century, and is famous for the two springs: 金泉 (kin-sen, golden spring) and 銀泉 (gin-sen, silver spring).

The silver spring has slightly radioactive water, and alas we chose not to expose ourselves to this. The golden spring has water very rich in iron salts. Rich enough, in fact, that the water is a deep orange, and opaque enough that you can only see a few centimeters deep in it. Rich enough, even, that the entire city is coloured a kind of reddish orange from deposits from the hot water — cooled down to a mere scalding 42º before you'd bathe in it.

This photo was taken just outside a shrine with a water container dedicated to the hot spring; a shrine where everything was caked with salt and brightly orange with iron, all over.

Geisha shrine on Shinbashi-dori

More HDR from Yasaka

I really love the results from our late night tripod photo shoot on the temple grounds of the Yasaka temple in Kyoto.



I will move on to other subjects. Any week now, I promise!

Yasaka Shrine HDR — surreal

Using the “surreal” settings from the HDR engine in Photoshop CS5, and tweaking the settings, you can arrive at a completely different entity altogether. I rather like this result; and it's starkly different from yesterday's version!

Yasaka shrine HDR

A photorealistic HDR take on the entrance to the Yasaka shrine in the middle of the night. Stay tuned for other results from the same source files!

Yakata Shrine entrance by night

Starting out with a triple of images, taken to produce an HDR image of the Yakata Shrine entrance (coming up soon!), we noticed that the +2ev picture had great potential.

Played around a little in Photoshop, and — voila!

Kanteibyo

The famous chinese temple Kanteibyo in Kobe.

Inari's torii walk, Minatogawa

Another one of these temple walks leading up to the shrine of the kitsune god Inari, clutching the keys to the granary in his maw. This one in the large Minatogawa temple in central Kobe.

The Minatogawa shrine

The Minatogawa shrine is possibly the largest of the Shinto temples in Kobe. Gorgeous, as are they all.

Teeming Kobe in the evening sun

With the red of the cranes and bridges positively aglow with the evening sun's golden rays.

Still life: A mathematician's dinner's aftermath

After a full and splendid conference dinner, conversation meandered on to the themes I couldn't cover in my talk, and the tablecloth filled up with explanations and formulae.

A Kobe Sunset

Not how Carbonara is done

My lunch yesterday was supposed to have an egg-yolk spread over the scallions and stirfried meat on top of the rice.

So instead of cracking the egg for me, I get an egg. And an egg separator. And two bowls. Get crackin'!

Buttocks up

In Sannomiya, close to the train stations, this statue may be found. It's one of the more explicit homages to the female curves in the area - though gelded and tall curvaceous women with rather more European faces are found all around the area my hotel is in.

Kobe Mosque

The Mosque in Kobe, crammed in at the very south end of the Kitano part of town. Nearby, a number of turkish restaurants, halal grocers and other noticable features of its demographic were noticable.

The Ikuta Shrine

The main gates at the Shrine at Ikuta, the shrine that gave name to the city Kobe. I went there today with a few jetlagged mathematicians; and we were lucky enough to witness parts of a Shinto wedding ceremony while walking the grounds.

Erect glass and light sculpture

Proudly it stands, jutting up from the hyperelliptical round-about drawn originally by Piet Hein. The Crystal Vertical Accent in Glass and Steel lights up, accentuating it's own almost phalloidal shape in its gnarly, knobbly glory.

It makes you want to ... well, celebrate. Really.

The mating call of the Taxi Cab

As the night falls, and when the season for mating has arrived in the early fall, the taxi cabs go out cruising the streets  until they find an appropriate mate, at which time an elaborate dance begins: both to ascertain the actual gender of the other cab, and to show off the own splendour and suitability for a mate.

close-up

En närbild av en av orchiderna

Day and Night

Day


Knight?

Stockholm city lights

For my 30th birthday, an abstract view of Stockholm city lights, as reflected on the water running through Central Stockholm.

A view to kill for?

This is taken on land at a wonderful café in Stockholm . Found after an exellent Annie Leibovitz exhibition ( last days of) A truly remarkable woman who found an equally remarkable partner in Susan Sontag...very naked and very glitzy pictures contrasting. Had a discussion about how we are viewed by others and ourselves. Liked the suggestion that we are like dice with diffrent faces/aspects for diffrent situations but it is always us , we who are the original dice with all the rest back there as hidden (hopefully ;) depth.

Stockholm Royal Castle — by night

The Stockholm Royal Castle. By night.

Engineers draped over the stairs

At KTH, where I'm spending my summer, the last weeks of August are dedicated to Orientation Week (nØllning). In its modern guise, this consists of the elder students organizing a whole lot of parties, and various theatrical events – with much of the classical hazing elements replaced by a more clownish approach.

Having my office on KTH campus means, among other things, that I may well walk out straight into one of these theatrical events; this time with students in their coveralls (the modern formal replacement for white tie for student parties that may involve ending up drunk in a gutter) and whiteface draped over the stairs between the mathematics department. (sic!)

Bodily Questionmark ;)

Caught with my mobile- neatness IS a virtue and the bodyshape reminded me of a questionmark ..

GOING ON...In Death and Life-pictures taken in the Forest Cemetary: By the Graves and Coming out of the Ressurection Chapel.

The graves in the Forest Cemetary.

Another picture from yesterday's field trip. There'll be more...

Sunset in Stuvsta

As I walk down the road towards my parents' in law, the sun sets ahead of me, and I cannot but shoot a few pictures of the vividly coloured sky.

Chapel of the Holy Ghost at the Forest GraveYard

Life after Death...view from the Memorial Hill / Meditation Grove...where someone has put down a blanket and is quietly snoozing very peacefully....

Inside the Chapel of the Resurrection

One of the chapels at Stockholm's Forest Cemetary -- a UNESCO World Heritage site. Well worth a visit for its presentation of landscape and ... well, graves. Also very peaceful.

Wall climber

In the slowly setting sun, this wall-climber shows off its texture across the brick wall.

A quiet Walk and Then...

This is one of my favourite times of day or rather night having a nice quiet walk...mellow light and landing UFOś

Stockholm Glob Arena by Night

Well, to be technical it's "Ericsson Globe Arena" these days, but the sign I saw once saying "Stockholm Glob Arena" stays with me, for several reasons.

Inflated steel

Outside the site for the KTH supercomputing centre PDC are three of these inflated shapes. The endlessly fascinating detail about these is that while they look, essentially, inflated, they are in fact made out of (hollow) steel.

Time travel...

timetravel ... interesting dubbelexpo at night or possibly... Superman ?! :)

Early autumn night

From the parking lot and backside of the hospital and kindergarten behind our apartment building.

Stealthy butterfly

Another shot from my visit at my grandparents' in Småland.

So ....Whaat!?

Car being Sceptical ... as I was this morning when I got up Way to early to post this ;)

It's Thursday

Therefore, beer. (I only had my cellphone with me, hence bad picture quality.) The beer is a Fraoch, a Scottish heather ale.

Pair of pods

Another detail from my grandparents' garden. A pair of proud pods, stretching skywards side by side.

Some of my favourite things in one picture: A nice flower ie orchid, books en masse, something which looks like the sunup of the world and something else which remains hidden :)

(Posting delayed due to network problems last night.)

Fat cat

Well, slimming down. Picture taken in our living room. This is Missan, one of Gabriella's four cats.

Bee

Bee, originally uploaded by michiexile.

The flowers in my grandparents' garden attract a wealth of bees and butterflies. With a bit of patience, a bit of luck and a long telephoto lens, this could be captured.