Kyoto Jidai Matsuri Photos by Stéphane Barbery
NOTE: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.
©Stéphane Barbery All rights reserved.
De souci en souci
( I'm somewhat concerned that I have no idea what this means )

In last month's post “Delighting in a Chasm Between Artistic Senses”, I introduced Kyoto friend Stéphane Barbery as an artistic guy with an artistic sense quite far from my own. The other day when Lightroom 3 beta was announced, I sent him a note about it, and that evening he replied with a note about how much he loves the results from the new rendering engine, and as evidence supplied his photo set from Kyoto's Jidai Matsuri, which he had finished a few hours earlier.

With his kind permission, I'm showing a few of his photos from that set. I've retained his original French captions.

The Jidai Matsuri (lit. Festival of Eras) celebrates Kyoto's more-than-1200-year history, with a long parade of groups in many different periods' period costumes. One great feature (for me) is that it runs right by my house, but a lamentable feature is that it runs right by my house.... in the city... with traffic lights and cars and utility wires and buildings and such. For the most part, photography is just not worth it. (The also-famous Aoi Matsuri runs right by my house, too, but the only pictures I've taken or posted of either are from inside the imperial-palace park.)

Anyway, these photos from Stéphane's have been highly processed in Adobe Lightroom 3 beta, with stunning results, hiding the modern backdrop as if Stéphane had just returned from a trip back in time. I would have never thought to do this, and if I had thought of it, would have never thought that I could pull it off.

©Stéphane Barbery All rights reserved.
De sourcil en sourcil
( I wonder whether these French subtitles will raise any eyebrows? )
©Stéphane Barbery All rights reserved.
De chausse en chausse
( This caption seems more fitting than the others )
©Stéphane Barbery All rights reserved.
Je me présente, je m'appelle Henri
( “My name is Bob” )
©Stéphane Barbery All rights reserved.
De gueule en gueule

Some of the others in the set are indeed a bit too dark for my tastes, but he's got a lot of gems in there (though Flickr doesn't make browsing photos very easy).

As I mentioned before, he's got a new photo book, “A Year In Kyoto” (Un an à Kyôto) coming out this month.


All 5 comments so far, oldest first...

Great images.

If you want to make Flickr easy (and beautiful) to navigate, Gie the Cooliris plugin a try:

http://www.cooliris.com/

–Bill (Portland, OR, USA)

— comment by Bill on October 27th, 2009 at 3:56am JST (14 years, 5 months ago) comment permalink

“De souci en souci” = From worry to worry. Not sure why, maybe because the guy looks worried somehow.

“De sourcil en sourcil” = From eyebrow to eyebrow, obviously this guy’s got some. A play with the previous title.

“De chausse en chausse” = From shoe to shoe, but this is an old term not used anymore. We say “chaussure”.

“De gueule en gueule” = From face to face. But “gueule” is more familiar, kind of like mug for lack of a better term (english doesn’t have as many curses as french unfortunately).

Overall I can translate them but it doesn’t really make that much sense even in french.

— comment by rx1337 on October 28th, 2009 at 8:31am JST (14 years, 5 months ago) comment permalink

What kind of pp did you do on these? If it’s too long to explain could you perhaps point me to a tutorial? Thanks in advance!

If you read the article, you’ll realize that these are not my photos. —Jeffrey

— comment by Henry on November 18th, 2009 at 11:34am JST (14 years, 4 months ago) comment permalink

Just to be pedantically complete – “Je m’presente, je m’appelle Henry” is the first line of a very famous 80’s pop song by Daniel Balavoine. It’s usually used as a stand in for the rest of the verse which is “J’voudrais bien réussir ma vie; être aimé; Etre beau gagner de l’argent; Puis surtout être intelligent” (I’d like to be successful; be loved; be beautiful; make money; and mostly be intelligent).

The titles of the pictures are somewhate cryptic – and strangely apt, if you’re french speaking – but don’t necessarily translate well.

— comment by Paul on November 21st, 2009 at 1:49am JST (14 years, 4 months ago) comment permalink

I quite like the French titles. As for the French singer mentioned by Paul, this is my favorite song:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fgs4QFPYuGo
(BTW my husband has the same wide range of voice.)
When I hear or read Daniel Balavoine’s name, I have to think of his tragical death. (So this time not “happy” to put this password.)

— comment by Anne on September 18th, 2012 at 7:51pm JST (11 years, 6 months ago) comment permalink
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