Sapporo horse race ...

maddoc

maddoc

... likes film again.
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... it was my first time going to a horse race. I quickly realized that there are two kinds of visitors, many of them don't watch the horse race at all but are very concentrated on filing the betting tickets and watching the results on the monitors, while the others don't care about the results but watch the horse race. Since I had my camera with me, I had some fun taking photos of both, the visitors and the horses. 🙂

Filing the betting tickets:

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Watching the results:

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One of the competitors:

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Warm up:

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One of the (12) races:

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All photos on Tri-X @ box speed (M6TTL)

Cheers,

maddoc
 
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Thank you all for the nice comments !! 🙂 I have fixed the broken links now. Indeed, I replaced the last three photos with slightly higher contrast copies because I found the original posted copies a little bit soft.

One more remark, all photos were taken with a 50mm lens.

Cheers,

maddoc
 
maddoc said:
One more remark, all photos were taken with a 50mm lens.
Click to expand...

Gabor, the stopped down photos look pretty sharp, so you couldn't be using a Noctilux, since everyone on the internets says the lens isn't sharp stopped down.

😉

Thanks for sharing, I digg the last one.
 
noctilux yeah! Funny you avoided mention that cursed word. It is understandable (it is to prevent trolls here 🙂 )

Like last picture. Dynamic
 
Again, thank you all for the kind words and comments !! 🙂 My personal favorite in this series is the last one, "the flying horses". It's blurred but I think it shows best what a horse-race is about, fast running horses !

I can't deny it ... the lens was the Noctilux. Since light was constant all photos were taken at 1/125s and f/5.6. It is my walk-around lens and the only 50mm in m-mount that I have ... (I still have my Summitar but it seems to have developed some haze inside the front element so I don't use it anymore)
 
Nice photos maddoc! What part of the city are the horse races in? I lived there for about six months, but I never knew they did horse races! I loved that city...such a nice place to live...
 
Stuart, thank you ! 🙂 The horse racetrack is located in Soen, west of the Hokkaido university. This is quite in the middle of Sapporo but since there is nothing else around to visit, foreigners usually don't go over there.

Sapporo is a paradise to live in ! Not that humid and hot in summer as the other large cities in Honshu and the winter, albeit lots of snow, isn't to cold either.

When did you live here in Sapporo ?

Edit: I forgot to mention in the last photo, behind the two leading horses, you can see two high buildings. One is the "JR tower" the 2003 renovated main railway station (and shopping center with hotel), the other is a big apartment house.

Cheers,

Gabor
 
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Hi Gabor,

I lived there in the summer of 2003 for 3 months (mostly at Hokkaido University's Slavic Research Center), and then for 3 months in the fall of 2005. The first time I was around minami 1-jo, nishi 18-chome. The second time I mostly went do do photography and work on my Japanese. I stayed at the Tenjinyama Guest House, which is basically a guest house for visiting academics, dignitaries and cultural exchanges...it is in Tenjinyama park (right in the middle, it was very bucolic), which is off of the Sumikawa stop.

What are you doing there?

Anyway, nice photos. I am jealous of you. I would like to get back there at some point (particularly for the fall), but I have not had the opportunity to go since 2005.
 
Cindy Flood said:
Nice series, Gabor. I like the last one best. It really captures the spirit of the horse race.
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Cindy, thank you !! The 90mm Summicron-M would have been better for a horse race but carrying around two heavy lenses is no fun ... 😉 BTW, I was the only one using a film camera, only DSLR with tele-lenses (and zooms, I spotted one Nikon 70 - 200 VR) and a couple of P&S with super-zooms. So nobody took me serious and I could happily snap away.
 
StuartR said:
Hi Gabor,

I lived there in the summer of 2003 for 3 months (mostly at Hokkaido University's Slavic Research Center), and then for 3 months in the fall of 2005. The first time I was around minami 1-jo, nishi 18-chome. The second time I mostly went do do photography and work on my Japanese. I stayed at the Tenjinyama Guest House, which is basically a guest house for visiting academics, dignitaries and cultural exchanges...it is in Tenjinyama park (right in the middle, it was very bucolic), which is off of the Sumikawa stop.

What are you doing there?

Anyway, nice photos. I am jealous of you. I would like to get back there at some point (particularly for the fall), but I have not had the opportunity to go since 2005.
Click to expand...

Wow !! We should have met !! I also work at Hokkaido University (post-doc in physical chemistry at the Catalysis Research Center) and I live in Sapporo since August 2003. First I had an apt near my lab in Kita 20 Nishi 3 and now I live in Misono, near Toyohira ward office. I know the Tenjinyama guest house but unfortunately it was closed last year !! A very nice place to stay, BTW.

Hopefully, you have a chance to visit Sapporo soon again and we can meet !
 
Thanks Gabor,

I will definitely let you know if I get a chance to go back and visit. It is sad that we did not meet. That is the one thing I am a bit regretful about...I did not meet as many people in Sapporo as I would have liked...I worked more or less alone both times, and I am naturally shy, so I did not meet too many people.

As for the Guest House -- I am not too surprised they closed. It was so cheap, and there were not many people staying there. There was talk of it closing when I was there (I guess the city did not want to keep funding it), so I guess they went through with it. It really was nice -- such a great location...very peaceful. Here are a few from the park:
tenjinyama-covered-bush.jpg


yellow-leaf.jpg


maples-and-snow.jpg


xp2-aki.jpg


Anyway, it was a great place. I am sad to hear it closed.

I hope you are getting ready for the fall! Consider going to Jozankei. I went there at the peak of fall when I was there -- it was gorgeous.
 
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