In my previous post, “Changing Lenses”, I showed a picture of a friend in front of a serious splash of fall colors. The leaves were so low in the view because we were at the top of a set of stairs. From the bottom of the stairs, looking up, the view was the impressive canopy seen above.

The view was pretty impressive from most everywhere...

In the background of the center of the shot above, you can just barely make out bits of the namesake for my “Gate of Disrepair” post.

The shrine area itself is fairly small, but picturesque...

The small buildings at right, with thatched roofs, were interesting, as thatched roofs tend to be....

Roofs can be thatched in various ways; these are thatched with large, rough reeds...

They're usually a bit more tidy, such as this, but often the rough nature can be used to preserve a natural feel, such as with or these thatched walls. (A much cleaner appearance, though certainly much more expensive, is to thatch with thin strips of ceder, such as this, this, and this.)

It seemed that only the top layer had become roughed up by nature.... the bulk of the roof seemed to be still neatly trimmed....

The roof looks to be glowing a bit, because as the sun had just come out, the dew had heated up and started to steam. I first noticed it on the roof of a small wall fronting the further thatched building...

It was sort of dramatic in how it wasn't steaming at all when we first walked up, then suddenly started. As mist tends to be, it was difficult to catch with the camera....

Stepping back even further added a foreground splash of momiji (maple)...

In a competition between 85mm and 14mm, it seems that the winner is us.

Stepping back a bit further shows the bridge I was standing on (and the same guy who stood right there for five minutes, seemingly intent on doing nothing but spoiling the photos I and others were obviously trying to take)....