Matsugamine Church

Matsugamine Church (松が峰教会) in Utsunomiya city is made of Oya stone (大谷石).

In February, I visited there at night and posted a photo of this church taken with a real Fisheye lens and explained briefly about this church.

Fishing the Church

The beauty of chilling winter is the clear air and sky! Though it was windy at dusk and nobody was there, it was worth visiting and photographing with the blue sky behind.

Inside photo of this church can be seen there.

The Weirdest Christmas Tree!

Butterfly resting after the eclosion

Since today it was the coldest day so far this winter, we came up with an idea of visiting a green house that provides us with spring-to-early-summer temperatures and heavenly moisture, located within the Igashira Park (井頭公園) complex in Moka city (真岡市). For those who are curious about this park and the city, please go check this article in our Budget Trouble blog (though the article's not yet fixed... Sorry for that).

As you can see photos above, a series of butterflies are waiting for you there. They are beautiful and lovely. When it's sunny, you simply forget that it's Christmas season if you are a resident of the northern hemisphere.

I was so eager to photograph them but I had to wait for 20 minutes or so until the condensation on the lens disappeared... What makes this green house unique is a Christmas tree decorated with a bunch of butterfly pupae! REAL ONES!!! No kidding! They're not socks, LED lights, or plastic toys.

Lots of pupae hanging. ALL REAL!!!

From some butterflies have already emerged and the shells are empty, others are not.

(Left) Pupae decoration   (Right) Overview of the tree

The fee to the green house is 400 JPY (adult). From 9:30 to 16:00.

This is a Macro Monday entry.

Bronze Statue Of Sacred Horse

It was a beautiful day today, though it was cold... When we went to downtown, I stopped at Futaarayama shrine (二荒山神社) to photograph whatever looks interesting. I captured the bronze statue of the sacred horse there.


This is a Black and White Weekend entry.

Have a wonderful Christmas Holiday!

The First Macro Of My Own!

You have no idea how desperate I was to have my own macro lens for years. Since I have been a good boy, Santa Claus came to our house a little bit earlier and dropped off a Tamron SP AF 90mm F/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 Nikon F-mount for me.

I attached it to my Nikon D200 and photographed water drops on the CD, which resulted in utterly abstract images!

My new gadget - I'm loving it!

Many thanks to my Santa's helper -  Ms. T!

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to everyone.

This is a Macro Monday entry.

Long Time No See...

Terribly sorry for being away from the photo-blogging sphere... I hope that there IS still somebody who is curious about visiting my blog:)

I marked December 15th on my calender as Otariya Festival (冬渡祭) that is organized by Futaarayama shrine (二荒山神社) in our town, Utsunomiya.　

Since we've featured this festival in our other blog, Budget Trouble, those who are interested in the background of this event, please take a look at  this article. And the photo of this festival taken last year is shown here.