Catching Zs

Randomly, where I happened to be on Sunday morning, was where A bunch of Fatlady Z enthusiasts were having a meet. 

Yes FATlady. That wasn't a typo. Back in the 240 days she may have been slender and fair but in her old age she's filled out quite a bit. 

 That probably explains the immense popularity of the 350Z and 370Z in the States. 

Just the briefest glance at any piece of pop culture from The Empire reveals an un-natural love for, overly rotund behinds...
usually being gyrated vigorously at the camera. 

Basically, drifting Zs

The Great A’Tuin returns!

Due to the great success of this lesson with my 3rd graders last year, I decided to to it again.

I set out to describe a picture of A’Tuin to my students using phrases like “There is a big sea turtle. There are 4 elephant’s on it’s back.” etc… The students then used their imaginations and artistic skills to bring what they heard to life.

Once again the drawings were rather spectacular!  check the slideshow to see all 100.

Shots #61 Coughee

Somewhere in Seisui Highschool, is Japan’s next great Graphic Designer.

Shots #20 Show and tell.

My students had to draw a pic or take a photo of an object they wanted to introduce… A few chose their best friends… This was the best picture of the bunch (it is scarily accurate). She also dragged her friend to the front of the class for the presentation. She got extra stamps for that one :D

Shots #02 The Shanks

 
Signage on the doors of facilities at the last place where we had a School Enkai.

書道 (Shodo ~ The Way of Writing)

I have wanted to give this a go for a while now and thanks to Sato-san, My Japanese teacher, I was able to try my hand at it.

Black ink is Black

 

Apparently I was very good for my first go. It took phenomenal concentration. 2 and a bit hours of writing burnt me out. Which was a surprise. Its just calligraphy after all right? Still it was worth the extreme effort to get my strokes right…ish.

I seriously recommend this to anyone who wants to give it a go… and has the stamina. It is un believably fulfilling.

 

HDR – Its harder than it looks

I finally started wrapping my head around the concept of HDR photography.

According to Wikipedia:

high dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminances between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wider dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight.

Basically it means the pictures are more pretty than real life.

So these are my first 2 attempts… I have some more in the pipe but it takes some time to get them done… and time is something that seems to be lacking at the moment.

clicky the piccie to get the biggie:

 

What do you think?

Any Good?

Feedback peeps!