This year, Japan’s famous Hanami season wasn’t as cold and windy as it was last year.  I didn’t feel like going out and snapping the trees though, beautiful as they were, because it’s been done to death.  However, going for a walk with my wife, we came across a few trees that, despite the repeated rains and wind, still had flowers weeks after they often are long gone.  Against me this year also is that my 18-200 Nikon lens is dead, the zoom broken, so all I have handy is a 35mm lens, which was surprisingly perfect for the task at hand.  For something different, I tried to have less green in the shots, and more of the blue sky.  The result of me standing under the trees mid-afternoon was quite good, especially with +0.7 on the exposure dial to compensate. The gallery images now go up to 2560 wide for 30″ displays.  Enjoy .