today may be tanabata but it was also the obon festival at nishi hongan-ji temple in little tokyo, well perhaps by little tokyo 'cos i don't know if it is technically within the borders. we went down to check that out. um, quite small but that's to be expected. we lingered around because we wanted to see the dancing that was going to take place. it wasn't that great. i took a lot of photos for practice because i think parade type photos are hard to do well. when i got home, i was right. they were shit. i knew they would be but they were shit for another reason. a technical reason. too dark! just a tad too dark for my taste. not good at all. i must practice so much more because for too long i've relied on fully automatic cameras and i must learn again how to judge lighting conditions. not that i was ever good at it.