Simple Wood Carving on a Rural Shrine’s Gate
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desktop background image of carving detail on a gate at the Toufuu Shrine, Kyoto Japan -- Shrine Gate Carving elegantly simple -- Toufuu Shrine (道風神社) -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 2500 — map & image datanearby photos
Shrine Gate Carving
elegantly simple
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As I mentioned the other day in the post about an outing with Vaughn Hart to the mountains of north-western Kyoto, we stopped by a simple, unassuming rural shrine. The entrance to the immediate shrine area was through a small little wooden gate, seen here at the top of the steps Vaughn is standing on...

Simple Entrance to the Toufuu Shrine Vaughn pauses to soak it in -- Toufuu Shrine (道風神社) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — 1/800 sec, f/1.4, ISO 220 — map & image datanearby photos
Simple Entrance to the Toufuu Shrine
Vaughn pauses to soak it in

You can't see them in the photo above, but the gate actually has doors, propped open at the moment...

Reverse-Angle Shot -- Toufuu Shrine (道風神社) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 720 — map & image datanearby photos
Reverse-Angle Shot

Something about the carving at the top of the gate caught my eye. The light was just wonderful for it... strong shadows, yet somehow soft....

Toufuu Shrine (道風神社) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5, cropped — 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1100 — map & image datanearby photos

The carving is much less complex than that seen in this post about a similarly-unassuming shrine not too far away a bit deeper in the mountains, but at the same time this gate's carving seems more elegant, yet not at all opulent or lavish, as might be found in a well-funded city shrine. I liked it.

Toufuu Shrine (道風神社) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/4, ISO 4000 — map & image datanearby photos

All 2 comments so far, oldest first...

What a nice way to spend what looks to be a lovely afternoon. The carving reminds me of Ainu pieces.
Karen in Metro DC

— comment by Karen NV on February 28th, 2011 at 10:40pm JST (13 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink

The door carving reminds of game pieces of carrom.

— comment by parv on March 1st, 2011 at 11:09pm JST (13 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink
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