Another Look at the Bazillion Offering Statuettes at Kyoto’s Sanzen-in Temple
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The Question Was, What am I? -- Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 900 — map & image datanearby photos
The Question Was, What am I?
desktop background image of a tree seen through lines of silhouetted offering statuettes, at the Sanzen -- The Answer Is, A Bunch of Offering Statuettes At the Sanzen'in Temple (三千院), Kyoto Japan -- Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/40 sec, f/22, ISO 6400 — map & image datanearby photos
The Answer Is, A Bunch of Offering Statuettes
At the Sanzen'in Temple (三千院), Kyoto Japan
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The other day I posted the first photo above as one of my “What am I?” quizzes. The second photo shows the same view, but with a smaller aperture and the focus on the foreground.

Here's the view from the front:

View from the Front -- Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1800 — map & image datanearby photos
View from the Front

I posed the quiz as being a simple one to anyone familiar with the Internet because all one had to do was click on the “nearby photos” link under the photo (as I have under almost all photos I post) to find out that I had previously blogged a post titled “A Bazillion Offering Statuettes at the Sanzen-in Temple”, showing photos of the statuettes in the immediate vicinity of the quiz photo.

I lead that older post with a shot similar to this:

desktop background image of an offering statuette in focus among a long line of out-of-focus statuettes, at the Sanzen -- Very Isolated -- Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos
Very Isolated
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Except that this time they were bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun, and I used my true-macro Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 to isolate the point-of-focus statue even further. It's not my normal desktop-background fare, but I thought I'd give it a try and offer desktop-background sizes as well.

The mostly-creamy nature of the version above might work okay for a desktop background, but as a photo I think it's a bit too unbalanced, so for, er, balance, here's one with a wider depth of field...

Less Isolated @ f/8 -- Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/8, ISO 5600 — map & image datanearby photos
Less Isolated @ f/8

There were a lot of statuettes...

Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 @ 24 mm — 1/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 200 — map & image datanearby photos

Really a lot...

Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — 1/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 220 — map & image datanearby photos

More over here...

Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — 1/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 250 — map & image datanearby photos
End of the Line -- Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2800 — map & image datanearby photos
End of the Line

So there are just over 15,000 of them with labels, but there were racks and racks of unlabeled ones as well, waiting, I suppose, for sponsors.

Some were off-colored and dusty...

Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/4, ISO 3600 — map & image datanearby photos

Some were adorned with ornaments...

Mini Sandals like those in this post -- Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/4, ISO 2800 — map & image datanearby photos
Mini Sandals
like those in this post
Various Ornaments -- Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 800 — map & image datanearby photos
Various Ornaments

This is all just one display shoved in the corner of a far-flung area of a huge temple complex, but it's visually interesting so it seems to catch my eye each time.

Of course, with a visit in autumn, the fall colors are the main attraction. In keeping with yesterday's post about yesterday's visit to the Yoshiminedera Temple where I showed the first photo I took that day, here's the first photo I took during last week's trip to the Sanzen'in Temple (where I later took all the shots shown above)...

desktop background image of red, green, and yellow momiji (Japanese Mapel) overhanging a creamy out-of-focus moss-covered stone wall -- First Photo of a Productive Day -- Sanzen-in Temple (三千院) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos
First Photo of a Productive Day
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I've provided desktop-background sizes for three photos on this post, but it's this last one that I'm most looking forward to using myself. I've been posting a lot of these lately... it's just such a photogenic time to be in Kyoto.

Continued here...


All 2 comments so far, oldest first...

I think the shadow unbalances VERY ISOLATED. The Depth of Field is fine. That isolated statue has a lot of symbolism: the irony of the lonely person in a sea of people /an answered prayer from a deity’s perspective /an illustration that all of us really want/need very similar things. IMHO: the f8 shot brings out some of the detail in the shadow area but does not stir emotion like the f2 shot. Maybe the photo equivalent of a B-side for you but I’m glad it left the cutting floor and made it to the album.

— comment by Ron Evans on November 20th, 2010 at 5:43am JST (13 years, 4 months ago) comment permalink

I was glad to finally get the answer but I don’t really see how “real life experience” relates to finding the answer, though internet 101 certainly would seem to have helped. I could see that something was between the camera and the tree but had no idea what it was. Now I know.

The real-life experience is that on the web, things often have related links nearby. Given a quiz about a photo, a link to “nearby photos” certainly sounds like a fruitful avenue to explore. —Jeffrey

— comment by Arthur Brigham on November 21st, 2010 at 4:40pm JST (13 years, 4 months ago) comment permalink
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