Furano - home of Lavender

After the disastrous attempt, as described in my previous post, this is my second trip to Furano on 27 July 08, joining the family trip of my Malay friends, who are also doing PhD at Hokkaido University.
On this trip, we travel by their own transport, so we can pull over at will, making traveling very convenient.

Look closer at the sun glass and you will see me taking the picture, and the guy in red is the friend who has invited me to join the trip, thinking that I have an international driving license so can take turn during the journey (about 2 hours of driving from Sapporo to Furano).

To place the sun glass on the sunflower and photograph it is his main aim of the trip. Luckily we found it so I can shoot this funny pic, and he has no regret of the trip.

The rice packed in banana leaf with some spicy condiment made of chili is called 'nasi lemak' in Malay. Literary translated as 'fatty rice(?)'. It is one of the very popular Malay's food in Malaysia (Malay make it, and Chinese love it too! maybe that is one of the reason why we two different races get along very well in Malaysia) I didn't expect to have a chance to taste it here in Japan, but then it came into my surprised... love it!


Here is our first stop, somewhere between Nakafurano and Biei.

In photo below, notice that the colour of Lavender wasn't that vibrant?
If you are going for Lavender, you should visit in mid July. By end July, almost 50% of Lavender has faded. I once told a friend this:
"lavender in mid July is like girls around 18, in late Aug... like women around 30... "
Quoted directly from the email that I sent... I was wrong though, it should be women in late 40 by late August. So plan your trip wisely!!

At Funaro, you are not only getting Lavender. Furano is a town of agriculture, so there are many other farms which make good landscape.
See how blue the sky is... my investment in B+W polarizing filter paid off.
*Polarizing filter - a piece of glass that we put in front of the camera lens to filter out polarizing light, and thus bring out the true colour of the subjects; If you have experience wearing glasses with polarizing feature, you'll understand what I mean. So polarizing filter is what landscape photography must-have accessory.

Photo below is without polarizing filter, a candid shoot of me in the act by a friend. Notice that the colour of the cloud isn't 'pop' as there is polarization effect (If you are a tech geek, you might want to find out more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization); you can't solve this issue in photoshop - polarizing filter is the only way to go!
Btw, the B+W is a brand name - in the world of lens filter, it is a Ferrari.
The focusing speed of my Canon EF16-35mm f2.8 L lens is so fast that shooting bee in action is of no problem!
After the second trip, I revisited Furano joining a trip organized by e3 group (e3 is Hokkaido University's English Engineering Education Program - students joining this program will do their Master or Phd in English. See here http://www.eng.hokudai.ac.jp/e3/ - the scholarship section might open your door to Japan!). The photo below is my 1st trial using HDR technique (HDR = High Dynamic Range). I will explore this technique more... In the previous post I've mentioned about the habit of a landscape photographer of revisiting the same spot until the right lighting is obtained for taking good photo; that I didn't mean revisit like what I did here (joining family trip of friends or school program). My revisit mean to stay in the town or location where photo is to be made, then from there the 'revisit' take place. Something like the National Geographic's photographers do when out for an expedition.
However, it is too late now to stay in at Furano, the Lavender season has gone, plus I don't have driving license yet, so will probably do it next year...