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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/800 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Someone With Their Work Cut Out For Them
Guy with a weed whacker, off the road in the rural mountains of northern Kyoto, Japan

Chipping away at the backlog of things I want to share, here are some photos from a short outing with vacationing American Jon Van Dalen in July. He was traveling Japan with his wife and her sister, and while in Kyoto I took them on a drive in the mountains north of the city.

Along the road in a small village, we noticed a shrine gate over a path leading away up a hill. It was visible from the road only for a moment as driving by, so we were lucky to spot it. I'd driven by many times in the past but had never noticed it before, so we stopped to investigate...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm — ¹/1250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
View from the Steps
leading from the road

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Honest Living

The pathway wasn't obvious, nor was our right to take it, so I asked an old lady working the fields whether it was okay. She seemed to be about 200 years old, with 198 of them having been spent in arduous but fulfilling toil of the land. I'm sure she's in much more robust health than I, and will certainly outlive me by a few generations.

It is not lost on me when I meet people of a certain age that they were teenagers or adults during WWII, likely with vivid memories. In this case, though, it wouldn't surprise me if the entire era of war passed unnoticed while she worked the fields. (I'm exaggerating. Slightly.)

Sadly, she declined my request to take her portrait, though did so with an endearing smile, a wave of the hand, and a muttered comment along the lines of “a photo? of the likes of me? Naaaah, you don't want to bother with that, you silly man.”

She did say it was fine to head back to the shrine we couldn't see but knew must be there, so Jon and I left his wife and sis-in-law at the relatively bug-free steps leading from the road, and forged up the bug-filled path past terraced fields toward the mountain treeline...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Looking in at the Treeline
it was dark under the trees, but appears less so in this styalized version

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Adjusting to the Darkness
there were lots of tall trees

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/60 sec, f/8, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Relentless Expansion
big tree outgrowing its enclosure

The shrine, I learned later (from finding it labeled on Google Maps) is called Hiyoshi Shrine (日吉神社), and seems to be fairly simple, there just to serve the local community. A large tree to the side of the main building sort of stole the show, though it's hard to capture the grandeur in a photograph.

Didn't stop me from trying, though....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 26 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Only Thing
that perhaps might be older and more robust than the lady working the fields

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 26 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Old Standby
The stock “At an Angle” view

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 42 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Ambiance

Nikon D700 + 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 @ 300 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/6.3, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bound
The lack of focus in this shot is bound to annoy.
Otherwise, it would have been a nice desktop-background photo

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/8, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bosom of Nature

It wouldn't surprise me if the site was very old, but the current shrine buildings were fairly modern work-a-day structures. They lacked in “character”, but the aura of being cloistered away under the trees gave the area a quite pleasant feel.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 48 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Departing for Civilization

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
View from Below the Treeline

It's hard to see, but if you look closely, you can see Jon's wife and sis waiting in the distance, to the lower-left of the dark roof. The dark roof is actually quite a distance beyond them, as the photo below shows, but distance is compressed in the long view above.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/320 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sharing Photos

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Me^* and Jon
photo by Teresa Van Dalen

^*My appologies to the grammar Nazis; I should have thought about proper word order when posing for the shot.

This outing was just a small slice of the day for Jon, which itself was a small slice of his whole trip. Jon has an account of the day on his blog, as well as the full rundown of his many adventures that make for good reading.