Paulownia / Princess Tree

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If you see only a flower of this plant, you may well mistaken it as a flower of foxglove, but this flower blooms on the 10m tall tree.

This is a tree called Paulownia, AKA  Princess Tree.   This tree was named by a German doctor who brought it back from Japan, Franz von Sieblod.   Russian Royal Princess, Anna Pavlovna helped Siebold to compile the book of Japanese Flora, hence the name of this flower was dedicated to her. — (U and W in Poulownia can be pronounced as V !)

In the east, this tree (could grow even 15m tall) has been used to curve music instrument and make the furnitures for a bride. (The wood repel the insects, hence protects the Kimono inside)  So that, when the parents got baby daughter, in tradition, they plant this tree and the time of her wedding, the grown tree was used to make dowry furnitures. —– How sweet the story isn’t it.   🙂

If you see (and smell) this flower, you will be convinced how noble this flower is. —– Why noble ? —– She doesn’t have a pompous beauty like a big rose, or the Somei-Yoshino Cherry like over whelming gorgeous power, and she looks rather humble, still its presence makes your mouth shut.  Siebold must have felt the same.

It must be well-known, that the Japanese Emperor’s emblem is the Chrysanthemum flower.  And the emblem of the Japanese Royals is this Paulownia flower. — (Cherry flower is the emblem of the Japanese military force.)  It shouldn’t be confused that the Shogun was just a minister of defence under the Emperor,  and the authority of the Japanese Emperor and the Royals never touched by anybody in the past 2600 years.   So, Japanese Empire and her Emperor is the longest continuing one blood line entity in the world history.   (Second longest is the British though, their blood line often changes = current royals is in fact germans. —– So, when British Queen shook hand with Japanese Emperor, she took her grave off.)

Untill two days ago, I didn’t know this tree was here and I was thinking only another tree in the north London.

This group of plants used to be called Labiatae (since its looks, and as in the same group of foxglove, Sage, rosemary etc) though, now they were called Lamiaceae and the botanical classification is lots more complicated.  (May be the study of gene might have found which species is closer each other etc.)

When I saw this tree from a distance, I thought it was a Jacaranda, —–  I have a quite soft spot to the pale violet-coloured flowers, I don’t know why, and the smell of this flower has been imprinted to my subconscious since I was small.   And its associated memory coming back at once.   It was THE MOMENT to see a lost friend again after many many years !

Fallen flowers still giving nice fragrance —– this is how royals smell !   And you know, royals never fart !   😀

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All mighty Good

 It said to be 500 years since Martin Ruther cause a revolution in the history of Christianity.  In the time of authoritarian Catholic, Martin Ruther started to preach, to communicate with the God in the common language, not in Latin.  (Obviously, even all mighty God didn’t have a multi lingual capability then !)

In the 13th century when western Christian mission arrived to Japan, they found that the Japan was the most awkward place to preach. — Japanese asked to those missionaries “If your God was such all mighty, why he couldn’t come here by himself while speaking in Japanese ?”  Of course, those western monks couldn’t answer the question. = So, they failed to convert Japan into Christianity and failed to make it into a colony, so even now, the Christian population in Japan is only about 1%. (Though, I’m not sure this figure include Muni as a part of Christian population.)

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Puzzling Cherry

Seeing this picture, very few of you will noticed that this is in fact a quite familiar place.  In deed, I’ve shown the photos of here in my blog a lots of times if not over hundred.   This is a very corner of the green patch I described as a flower meadow in my blog in the past three years. 

Why I’m fussing about was, the wild cherry trees growing here, now having a full bloom.   What’s wrong ? —– Nothing wrong.     But I just wondering how those cherry trees came here.  What I dubbed Instant flower meadow was created by the local residents on June 2014 simply by spreading the seeds of the meadow plants.   So, I guess that, those more than ten cherry trees, all about the same size, looks the same variety, must be started to germinate here then as the same lot. (= not accidentally brought by the bird as an individual seed.)   So, they all together are now three years old siblings and having the flowers first time. 

In the past, I was thinking that those small trees were the seedlings of the nearby Multilayered Cherry tree.   But now a fraud was exposed !    The bag of the “Meadow Flowers Seeds” were adulterated with cherry seeds = and its right or wrong have to be strongly questioned.  Ever growing those cherry trees wouldn’t go together with the idea of a flower meadow. —– May be closer to the real nature and its cycle of the plant though, those wild cherry were too obstructive to “The Meadow”.  They are not expected to grow in a garden patch of a council housing estate here.

The particular cherry itself was a rather primitive wild cherry.    So, I want to see this flowers have cherry fruits and eaten by the birds.  (then spread to other locations. —– would it really happen ?) 

You might be noticed a phenomenon, that the most of the cherry blossom doesn’t have the siblings under the tree.  First of all, not all of them makes cherry fruits, let alone good to eat fruits. Because of them were created only for the sake of beautiful flowers, and often those variety was infertile.  Especially the most popular cherry in the world, Somei-Yoshino was originated from just one tree discovered in the Somei village in the west of Edo (Tokyo) 150 years ago.    From that tree, all the Somei-Yoshino were artificially propagated by grafting one by one.  ( But now, with the limit of the genetic strength, the Somei-Yoshino is coming to their end, and the nursery had stopped to produce any more Somei-Yoshino, following a direction of  the Japanese Gardening Association.    It was replaced by the next generation “Jindai Akebono” ! —– You can Google this story.)

So, the under the Somei-Yoshino tree, there even a single seedling germinate.

PS : ————————

Now its middle of June.  I found the cherry fruits on that Puzzling Cherry !  (Quite modest size and the taste wasn’t too bad.   🙂

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Fruits – X-lens comparison

Gaudy Lens

Yet another lens comparison of the homemade (and Sony) lenses / Pinhole.  (The link to each lens can be found in the “Related” post “Lens Comparison”)

Sony 30 mm Macro

By the way, this strawberry seemed to come from Spain in its original package — and not only looks gorgeous but also seemingly keeping pretty long shelf life.  BUT almost tasteless !  (Low suger level may keep long life.) —– We buy them with its looks, then become AWARE the taste after. = So, the growers succeeded to create “GOOD product” = good to sell.   A costumer who bought strawberry on a street market never come to Spain and complain to a farmer.

Mono-Pinhole

X4 Pinholes

DD Pinhole B

Gaudy Lens

Left = Sony 30mm Macro Lens, Right = Mag Lens

Close shot by Mag Lens

I’m not implying that the “Good lens” as a good-looking tasteless fruits. —– I’m after good taste = its typical fruity and well matured sweetness.  Otherwise, why we need to by fruits.

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Multi layered Cherry – X6 Lenses(?)

Mag Lens

Multi layered Cherry (Yae-zakura) started to flower.  Here is a collection of the photos taken by 6 different homemade Lenses / Pinholes.

Sony 30 mm Macro

Gaudy Lens

Gaudy Lens

Sony 30 mm Macro

Mag Lens

Sony 30 mm Macro

Gaudy Lens

Mono Pinhole

DD Pinhole

X4 Pinhole

X4 Pinhole

X4 Pinhole

Sony 30mm Macro

You must be convinced that how dry the images of “So called Good Lens”.  Still, you may not to have any choice but to go with the “Good Lens” other than just wet the lens with your spit.   😀   (Don’t worry, it’s not a serious matter at all.)

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When 3 Artists come together

There was a gathering with 2 Cinematographer / Video Artist = Mr A and Mr G.  Basically Mr A was curious about my homemade lenses etc.

It’s a visual artist’s habit.   They tend to grasp the world with their camera.   Then try to compile a poetry or report kind while using intentionally picked up material in the convenient order (and sometime made-up a false story.)   Since I brought my wire Dragon as well (Demonstration model), Mr A who never seen it kind was rather puzzled of its mechanism. (I guess, video camera’s eye might make small wire structure even harder to comprehend.)     Any how it’s a his business / expertise.  Something funny about this gathering was, since all three were long running artist, and got own style and the concept, each of us was shooting their camera in their own pace, without telling what he IS shooting or aiming what.  (So, when their footage come up, I might incorporate them into this post or make a link to their Post or Youtube.)

Mr A was shooting rather heavy weight video camera and Mr G was using 8 mm film cine camera.  (And I was using Nikkor 24 mm F2 on Sony A7R)

(I have no idea what they were shooting.   😀  )  While going through the same environment, we three may make completely different scope.

I wonder, are they making a kind of human drama ?   We are seasoned enough, to talk on the Film, not on the mouth.   (We no longer believe blah blah but the resulting solid image.)

They were 2 of the ordinally shot though, put them in this way might give you an impression, “We are walking towards the doomed future”.  (= that’s how the trick of the political bias works. “Donate the money to protect the earth, before it become  too late !  😀  )

The area in question was socially rather interesting place though, political Art never work. (Because, the art is the matter of emotion —– emotional power always makes mistake in the social movement.)

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Paint the Morning Sky

Screen shot of the same photo

This is a screen shot of the next photo using Double Density Pinhole on A7R camera.

Zeiss 18mm F3.5 on Nikon D810

This is the original straight shot on Nikon D810. (cropped image)

Zeiss 18mm F3.5 on Nikon D810

This was the straight shot on Nikon D810 by Zeiss 18mm lens as a comparison.

Fun camera Lens (27mm? / F13) on A7R

The same sky by the Fun camera Lens (though not on the same moment = I was doing those shots next by next).

Wide DD-Pinhole

A shot by the DD-Pinhole — in fact, this was the last one of those photos on the morning.

Wide X4 Pinhole

Shot by the X4 Pinholes with wide adapter attached.

X4 Pinholes image again. (without wide adapter)

Yet another X4 Pinholes image.

Just a casual click on the kitchen window — only for a fun.   😀  —– but I like this !

How about those ?  — Left was X4, Right was Mono Pinhole.

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Magnolia Kobus ver (?) — on x5 Lenses(?)

Kobus (Japanese name Kobushi mean fist) originated northern Japan, but this pink variety might be made in here.  (I hope it was done by the simple crossbreeding, not by the heavy manipulation of chromosome or gene, unlike the blue roses and green chrysanthemum kind. === We are over-stepping too far.)

(Those above three photos were done by the Sony E 30mm lens)

Maglens

Maglens

DD-Pinhole A

DD Pinhole A

DD Pinhole B

Not all the Double-density Pinhole is the same — far from it, very different each other and very difficult to control.  This one may suit for more mixed color, large patterned subjects. (not this one.   😀 ) — It seems, Sony A7 changes process if the size of hole changes (when the amount of image data changes) = strangely, the larger hole makes sharper image ! — May be a conflict with their Noise reduction process (small detail might be wiped out presumed as the noises, hence this plasticky image ! —– Sony or Minolta try to sell the image what they thought Ideal.  From the same DD Pinhole, the images made by Nikon and Canon were different. )

x3 Pinhole

x3 Pinhole

x3 Pinhole

Often the multi pinhole together with shake by the window creates good fun.

DD-A

DD-A

Local people must think, what a hell that guy doing over and over again.   😀

(Or they might be thinking that on the spring, all the idiot comes out. = As today is the Spring Equinox.)

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Sweet image (2) — aren’t they rather Goth ?

The photos here were taken by the DD-Pinhole with a LED ring-light.   Pinhole mean, there is no grass optics which may block the light of shorter wave length (Blue to UV) and the LED used were very cool day-light type (recycled from a discarded cheap work light — there is a high quality LED which got exact 5500°K but with the cost)  = resulting to produce very blueish photos. (I should have set the camera’s White balance to somewhat 8000°K in advance)

You may say, they are not pretty sweet kind but more likely a Goth taste !   

I agree, but, is there anything wrong ?         Ha ha ha.   😀

Nevertheless, I like this approach / technique.   Anyway, the photography chose the subject.   If it doesn’t, it mean, it IS a kind of general photography, not worth bothering to. —– if you say, there are numerous impressive photos in the field of general photography —– Are they ? If you look it again, you will realize, it is impressive because the subject WAS impressive = not the photo.  Photo was just a good copy of such subject.  Nothing else. = you can send a robot to do a copy.  = It is not a photography but a listing up, curation of the subjects.   There is an occasion, as if the subject was almost placed there to be photographed.   Photography is a very heavy activity in the life.

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Sweet images

Well, they were yet another template like photos — fuzzy cherry flowers, this time created by the homemade Mag-Lens.  

Don’t worry it wouldn’t cause any infringement of the copyright law.    😀

It supposed to make fragile flowers even more soft though, strangely, it made flowers looks somewhat like a ceramic craft.  —– ?      Are my eyes got something wrong ?

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