Shot In The Dark

There's a clever double meaning in that title friends, since I took the following pictures both at night, and with no real understanding of how to use my camera in the dark. But I recently bought myself a sweet $15 tripod, and since it's dumping snow outside, I figured what better time to test it out. So I fashioned a raincoat for my camera, slipped on my boots, and headed out the door.

I think I under estimated the amount of light that's needed when taking pictures at night, especially since there is so much artificial light in the area where I was taking pictures. Had it not been snowing so hard and gunking up my lens, I would have stayed out to tinker a bit longer. But given the conditions, I ended up with some overexposed, though not totally disasterous, wonderful snowy pictures.

In un-Kanazawa fashion, the weather has remained constant, and the snow has continued for several hours without interuption. I'm digging the snowy evening atmosphere and am happy that it's accumulating for once.

Here's our neighborhood train pulling into the station behind our apartment. It's not actually going the speed of light, and in fact is a rinky-dink 2 car affair that I've yet to understand the usefulness of.



All the bikes in front of the station. Someone's ass will be cold.



And our local swingset, looking snowy.



I also took some daylight pictures today, from where else but the beach. I was pretty fired up on way there as I could see the ominous clouds rolling in, and nothing gets me going like weather! I trudged around on the beach for a little while looking for any interesting garbage that might have washed ashore, to no avail. You can see the snow rolling in off the water, and it started about five minutes after I took these pictures. It hasn't stopped since.




In the 'did you know' department, did you know that Japanese snowmen are made of only two snowballs, as opposed to the three that we are accustomed to in America? I'm sure the obnoxious children who live next door will build several of them tomorrow, and I'll take some pictures to prove my point (about the snowmen, not the children). So whether or not it's snowing where you are, hope you are cozy, warm, and enjoying the weekend. I'm going to peak out the back door again and stare at the snow now.