Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Small Window
at the Housen-in Temple (宝泉院), Kyoto Japan
Picking up from “First Visit to Kyoto’s Housen-in Temple” the other day, where I ended with having tea and sweets in the garden-viewing room, here are some more shots of that room and the area.
The back of the room had some nice paintings in the alcoves...
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/1.4, ISO 720 — map & image data — nearby photos
Rear of the Garden-Viewing Room
Housen-in Temple (宝泉院)
In the shot above, Paul is facing the window seen in the opening shot, shooting the detail of the translucent opening above it. It's covered with thick Japanese paper, so he probably got a shot like this:
Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Paper Window
The full window looked like it should be very photogenic, but despite spending considerable effort on it, I didn't come away with much. Here are two more attempts:
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/125 sec, f/1.4, ISO 160 — map & image data — nearby photos
Popular Target
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Warmer Tone
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/4.5, ISO 7200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Historical Stain
Some of the ceiling boards in the temple are recycled floor boards of the Fushimi Castle, move here when it was dismantled in the 1600s. The stains are the blood of Motodada Torii and his men, who committed seppuku as part of a battle that changed the course of Japanese history.
According to the guy giving the explanation above, the winners of the battle would have just left the bodies there to rot, as a form of disrespect to their beaten foes, so the stains would have had plenty of time to set into the wood grain. (The winners this time would all be dead a month later, their heads piled into numerous huge kubizuka mounds 20,000 at a time, at the decisive battle of Sekigahara that unified Japan, because the 10 days that they squandered in defeating Torii here allowed Torii's feudal lord the time to raise a sufficient army to beat them a month later. That feudal lord's family went on to rule Japan for more than 250 years until Westernization set in the 1860s. Had Torii not made the stand here, the violent warring states period would have likely not ended any time soon.)
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/4.5, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
More Stains
down the other leg of the L-shaped veranda
I recall that in person you could see specific things like hand prints, but I don't see them in this photo.
Back to something more peaceful, another view of the small front garden seen in the previous post...
After leaving the temple building, we explored the rock garden.
Given how I at least see how the Japanese think about death and the supernatural, I’m surprised the floorboards if they are indeed stained in blood, were used. Frankly it would creep me out, but then perhaps it was also done to generate visitor traffic