Have you explored the haikyos of China? Just watched this documentary (www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPILhiTJv7E) and intrigued to see what’s to be discovered in this massive country!

Cheers

chottom

How else can I use stats on the site, hmm….

Glad you’ve enjoyed the changing designs, hopefully though the current one will be OK for a while now. I agree about pro/free sites, it depends largely what you do with it yourself.

Domo on photos!

I enjoyed to see the top 10 haikyos as well as your other haikyos and
I was a bit surprised that Ashio dozan was ranked as no 1.
Personally the best haikyo is the Queen Chateau and the second best is Heiangaku in my experience.
But the Russian village looks the most intersting haikyo to me.
As for the photo, the cobalt blue chemical pool is my favorite.

I love both of your artistic and realistic photos as It’s always cool to see that you’re challenging on something and make yourself better.
For the same reason, I like you to change the theme design once in a while.
It’s totally unique if you use it well or remake it with your own touch- although it is a free one. Using a professonally designed one with no understanding is worse I think.

I know it is getting harder to find cool haikyos. But don’t give up and keep challenging!
Otherwise I look forward to seeing your different haikyos and reading new stories next year.

Good luck!
SY xx

Japnomon- Comments under posts, check, I’ll cut that out from now on. Over-exposure I think is due to very white or grey skies, one of the reasons I moved to more HDR in the first place. Am sure shots can be better though. Are there more haikyo in Japan, sure, though those that remain will all require more travel from me to get to. So far I’ve not been far west of Tokyo at all, there’s a whole half of the country left, including Gunkanjima which I’ll get to at some point. Then there’s Hokkaido, Okinawa, and doubtless lots of other ones I’m not yet aware of. After that, there’s wider Asia, whole new countries I could haikyo trip to, if I can spare the time and money.

UPDATED- Poll is here.

Not sure about the HDR comment though, a lot of your photos are extremely over exposed, something which HDR should help you overcome. I noticed that in the russian village shot and the sports world shot, the sky is almost pure white….

Are there many good haikyo left in Japan? Looking forward to more.

It seems as though everyone is on the case of HDR and it is one of those “bovril” love it or hate it things. I like HDR but am in the school of when it is more subtle and realistic(here is a nice subtle one on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/kanefeaver/4107255659/) , one thing that strikes me about your HDR shots is that they never seem sharp, I don`t know if this is how they are displayed or a wordpress thing etc, but I have seen some HDR shots with the tokina looking amazingly sharp. I think for your eventual book if you are to go with HDR this might be something you want to work in, Stuck in Customs book just came out, and although he has a lot more experience with HDR and a better camera his shots have a big impact, the ozawa pools one is getting there, here are some images too http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?m=pool&w=638028%40N25&q=HDR+abandoned

hopefully this doesn`t come across as HDR bashing and keep up the good postings.

Site squished up on the left side- I think I’ve now fixed this, hadn’t really been aware of it before because I have a wide screen and the site fits on easily with white space either side. Should be better.

Only excerpts showing in the RSS- I think I’ve fixed this, wasn’t aware of it at all before, but I don’t really know what part of my site governs the RSS feed so we’ll see. I’m looking into it, I guess.

Changing site style- Right, I can easily appreciate this would be annoying, if not kind of a problem. I’ve been casting around for the right identity. Is the site about my writing, my future writing, about haikyo, about kooky Japan stuff, etc.. Obviously each one of those would go with a different kind of site design. Out of Ruins was cool, but is not my main goal- main goal is an interesting place that is open to a wider readership, so posts on any topic (fiction, kooky japan, straight-up blog posts) will not be too out of place. It’s a work in progress, but I don’t envision any large changes to come.

Explore style- Glad to hear these thoughts. I too wonder where the Sports World kind of explore has gone, with more nail-biting adventure and the like. I guess these days I go on road trips with a group of friends, so that sort of ‘adventure’ is diminished. We roll up to the gate, go in, head out. Now I may write about some banter between us or something, but can understand that’s not as interesting as solo explores of the place. The only solution to this I can think of is to stop going with friends and start going solo again, perhaps at night, aiming to sleep over. The main trouble with that is it takes a lot longer, and can only really do one or two locations in a weekend that way. I’ll think about it some more though- I miss that style also.

Photo style- HDR! Right. It’s true I rarely shoot natural light photos of ‘things’, preferring to shoot the broader rooms. I suppose my feeling is that once you’ve seen a number of ‘things’ across a range of haikyo, they all start to seem much the same (to me, at least). That’s a belief I’ll re-examine on my next trip out, perhaps I’m missing out. As for correct exposures for external shots and the like, well, often I’m at the mercy of grey skies and have the option of white-out or HDR. I can get better at that sure, but partly it’s a fact of Japanese weather.

Comments under the photos- Good point, amended.

Individual responses now-

CJW- That means a great deal coming from you, thanks a lot.

Jason- Noted. As for more history in posts, I strive to whenever I can find it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Adam- Thanks a lot for this, very interesting ideas, and thanks for passing the link on to your friends. ‘Sneaking around’ stories, yes, I need more of those back. Will see what I can do for 2010.

geekmom- Documentation style vs. arty style, hopefully I’ll be able to bring these two into closer union in future posts. Have them both. The appeal of the Hotel Royal maybe slides by me because I get used to seeing so many big abandonments, but now you point out how bizarre it is (especially for something so modern), I can see it.

Tornadoes- Cheers, agreed. Maybe I’ll put up a poll post so people can vote directly on their favorites.