Author: travel67

Soma Nomaoi – Yoinorikeiba

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It’s a long hot trek from the three outer shrines to the Hibarigahara-Saijochi, but some made the ride in style, and in the shade. Once at the track, the riders and horses had a rest before mounting up for the afternoon’s races. The horses are fast, but the equipment is pretty rudimentary. There are no modern helmets for head protection, so you have got to be a great rider or know how to tuck and roll.

Pentax 645Z and the Double Big Mac

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The new Pentax 645Z sensor is 51.4 megapixels. Great for image quality and an amazing amount of detail, but this can lead to a few issues. A 64GB memory card can hold only 566 images.   (Compared to 712 images on the 40MP 645D  or 1198 on the Pentax K3) Larger files mean that it’s slower to download the data from the SD card, and slower to import into Lightroom, and slower to create 1:1 previews, and slower to edit in Photoshop. With the 645D, I’d got used to setting things running on my old Mac Pro 1.1 and then taking the dog for the walk or making a cup of tea. Recently, however,  when shooting more frames, and at higher resolutions the speed of my workflow was no longer efficient. I wanted a Mac with 32GB RAM, and a PCIe SSD with about 500GB of memory. The easy option would be to look at the new Mac Pros, but a model with the specs I wanted would be around 5,000 dollars. Instead, for around half …

Soma Nomaoi Festival – Shutsujin Ceremony at Nakamura Shrine

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The Soma Nomaoi samurai horsemen festival takes place each July in Fukushima Prefecture. Following the devastation of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami it was cancelled, but it restarted once again in 2013. I attended this year to document one of Japan’s great festivals, and the resilience of Fukushima’s people. Preparations for the lead samurai and his horse at the castle beside Nakamura Shrine. Breakfast of champions. Sake and cucumbers at Nakamura Shrine. Gearing up. A priest from the shrine places the helmet on a samurai rider. Time for a quick portrait. New camera, same technique of getting up in people’s faces. Priestess helps one of the youngest riders get ready. The little girl was actually the daughter of the Shinto priest. Statues at the shrine show the importance of horses to the area. The priestess like all of the other participants on horseback was an excellent rider. The mounted samurai were followed by pikemen and priests carrying a mikoshi (portable shrine). The samurai and priests then parade south from Soma to Mina Soma and the …