Hasedera Temple Sakurai Nara prefecture
2023-4-28 I visited Hasedera Temple in Sakurai city Nara that is famous for peony flowers in this season. I’ve visited this place once almost 30 years ago, but the streets leading to the temple looked not changed much. Even though it was a weekday, there were many tourists. (All photos taken with SIGMA sd Quattro […]
Milk vetch flower fields around Asukadera Temple
2023-4-23 When I was a child, I used to lie down in the milk vetch fields on rice fields in my neighborhood. The milk vetch fields looked like a widely spread red-purple carpet, and were very comfortable. I wanted to see the milk vetch flower fields, so I visited Asuka village in Nara prefecture. However, […]
Cherry blossom season is now closing in Nara City
2023-4-7 The cherry blossoms along the Saho River Nara City had passed its peak last weekend, and fallen petals are covering the roads. Instead, a kind of cherry blossom called Yaezakura is in full bloom. It was raining today, so only few tourists came to see the cherry blossoms. I like a rainy day because […]
The thousand year cherry blossom tree at Butsuryuji Temple
2023-4-1 Yesterday, the owner of a souvenir shop at Tanzan Shrine told me that I must go Butsuryuji Temple in Uda City Nara if want to see cherry blossoms. I was curious about the story, and so visited the temple today. The reason for his recommendation seemed there is a large cherry blossom tree over […]
Tanzan Shrine in Sakurai City Nara
2023-3-31 As gotten warmer, I visited Tanzan Shrine in Tonomine, Sakurai City, Nara by motorcycle. Even though the shrine stands in the deep mountain forests, several couples of tourists were visiting from early morning. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom here also. Its website says that the current buildings were built in the 1600s […]
Cherry blossoms along the Saho River
2023-3-26 Along the Saho river in Nara city, there are places where cherry tree lines can be seen more than 1 km. In early April, cherry trees have full bloom and crowded with people who come to see them every year. This year, the flowers were in full earlier than usual in the end of […]
Creating an illustration like image from photos – part 2
Last time, I used K-means clustering to do dimensionality reduction of images to convert photos to images like Eizin Suzuki’s illustration. The converted images look like an illustration, but the color tone was very dark and it was far from the pop flavor art that the illustrator draws. In K-means, the centroids of clusters are […]
Creating an illustration like image from photos
In the 1980s, when I became a company employee from a university student, the illustration drawn by Eizin Suzuki were beautiful and very popular in Japan. HERE is the link to Eizin Suzuki’s official site. His illustration are so impressive that I often want to turn photos taken by myself into the pictures like his […]
GIF animation during NST transaction
Using Python, GIF animations can be created with very short code. I tested it with plush toys. The sample code is as follows. Created a folder named “input_image” in the same working folder and put frame-by-frame photos there, it is easy to create GIF animations. I also superimposed some “text” information on the images. Previously, […]
Iga Ueno Sweets Road
2022-11-16 I learned that there is a place called Sweets Road in Iga City, Mie Prefecture, then visited there. As I arrived too early in the morning, visited Iga Ueno Castle first. The castle is famous for its tall stone walls surrounded. Ducks were swimming in the moat of the castle. The maple leaves were […]