lime, yellow, emerald and aqua braid, sony A7c, sony 90mm macro, godox TT600 flash, 1/2 power?; f/8.0, ev 0, 1/160s, ISO 50, WB: flash; cropped in gimp
The title's pun makes a bit more sense if you know that Kuma is Japanese for ‘bear’. In fact, Kumamon (often shortened to just Kumon) is possibly the best known and most lovable of the prefecture icons, a handsome black bear with red circles for cheeks.[1]
Kumon with friend (Jiji from Kiki's Delivery Service, courtesy of Ghibli Park:)[2] These little stuffed critters, some 3–4" (75–100mm) high, are very popular backpack or jacket decorations; I got these as souvenirs for the wizard:) pixel pro 6 cropped and value adjusted a bit.
I wanted this braid to be ready by the time we got to Kumamoto, but there was quite the snarl on the train ride there—iirc, I spent most of the two hour or so trip trying to get this thing properly set up. And yes, Japanese trains are awesome, this would've been way more frustrating to do on just about any other form of public transport that comes to mind.
new braid, 2 varieties of variegated cotton yarn for sashiko style embroidery; shot on pixel pro 6 10:27 28apr24; cropped and scaled in gimp
This braid was preceded by a coral braid and followed by the seafoam braid featured yesterday and running concurrently to the violet/brown braid, still barely worked, on my 2nd disk.
Here's an arty, low DOF (depth of field) shot. equipment as above, f/2.8, ev 0, (well, the camera was on manual mode anyway...) ISO 50, 1/160 s, godox at, um...1/16th power?
I completed the braid 06Oct24 at a friend's barbecue, but as my flash trigger had by then succumbed, it would be another year before I photographed it. Despite the delay, I'm quite pleased with it, as, let's be honest here, as much as I want to be classy, garish colours are my typical default.
Actually took this overhead shot first:) So happy to have my flash and trigger working together again, though this was very low effort—I shot handheld, not bothering even to set up my tripod:)
I'm just not a very sophisticated person.
[1]Even I was charmed enough to buy a little stuffed souvenir for the wizard, and then a matching Jiji...
[2]I'm not a fan of tourist traps and boy howdy is Ghibli Park ever set up to separate visitors from their cash, but I figured if I could find a little stuffed Jiji to match Kumon that would be worthwhile, and sure enough, they had exactly what I wanted: I promised my host I would take only a few minutes shopping, and by Dog (or Cat:) that's how long it took, too:)
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
