I'd started to write up a blog post about the once-in-every-hundred-years roof repair currently going on at the Chion'in Temple down the street from me, and intended to note in that article that the temple is perhaps best known for its big main gate, when I realized that the big main gate has never appeared on my blog. I'm not sure how that's happened, but I'll rectify that now with photos that I happen to have lying around in my Lightroom catalog.

The gate doesn't look all that big in the photos above, but believe me, it is all that big:

The shot above came just a few days after my point-n-shoot had broken and been sent for repair, and I'd decided to move up to my first dSLR but had not yet received it. So I was shooting stills with a circa-2002 video camera. Ugh.

I ended up receiving the dSLR I'd ordered (a Nikon D200) the next day. My initial results with it were better than with the video camera, of course, but it took a while before I grew into it. Anyway, here's a shot of Chion'in's gate with that Nikon D200 after I'd had a couple of years' experience under my belt:

The gate can be quite pretty at night, but one needs a tripod to shoot it properly, and I'm generally too lazy. I did head out with a tripod six years ago for “Kyoto Higashiyama “Hanatoro” Lightup Event” and on the way apparently took the shot above.

Several years ago the road leading up to the temple was redone with nice lighting, and for this a tripod is a must, but again, I'm too lazy, but since I'm not too bad at holding steady for a longish exposure, I sometimes give it a shot if I'm walking by at night and happen to have the camera. Here's one such handheld attempt:

I'd also tried to photograph the nicely-lit path the day I got that D4, and the following photo appeared on my blog in “Took My New Nikon D4 Out For A Spin At Night (Before Reading The Manual)”:

The gate wasn't lit up at the time, so it's almost imperceptible in the background shadows, but technically this does count as an appearance on my blog so I guess today's post is not really its first appearance.

One evening last fall I came across the beautiful scene in front of the gate marred by a marketing display by Tesla Motors. This was particularly disappointing because I own stock in the company, but I suppose the temple has to make money somehow to pay for the every-100-years roof repair. (I don't know who owns the land here, separated from the temple by a public street, but I assume it's the temple.) A few days later the scene was repeated with BMW, so I guess there's some comfort in knowing it wasn't just Tesla.

And while on the subject of Tesla Motors, they weren't sold yet in Japan at the time so it was my first time to actually see one, and the in-dash navigation system was positively pornographic in excess:

Anyway, now that I've gotten Chion'in's gate out of the way, I can go ahead and write the blog post about the main building's roof repair.

Continued here...