Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 125 — map & image data — nearby photos
Behind the Seifuso Villa
清風荘 · Kyoto, Japan

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Dipping my pen again into the very deep well that was November's visit to the Seifuso Villa (清風荘) in Kyoto, today's post has a bit more from early on in the visit first seen in “Entrance Foyer to the Seifuso Villa in Kyoto”.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/200 sec, f/4, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Formal Gate
this gate, seen from afar
Seifuso Villa (清風荘)

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I vacillate on whether the photo above is of interest. I've deleted it (and then undeleted it) several times.

I showed the garden's formal tea house in “Approaching the Tea House at Kyoto’s Seifuso Villa”. Near it are a few small buildings loosely connected with shared outside passageways.... one building being a prep room for the staff, another a waiting room for guests, and finally a lesser-class tea room...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/80 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Support Buildings

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/50 sec, f/1.4, ISO 160 — map & image data — nearby photos
Entrance to the Waiting Room

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/50 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Simplicity Incarnate
the waiting room

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/200 sec, f/8, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Artsy Bamboo
on the path to the tea house

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/100 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Wash Basin
near the tea house

Next to the waiting room was a tea house of lesser status. The next two photos of our host, Will Baber (a professor at Kyoto University's business school), makes for an interesting comparison of widely-differing perspective effects possible with a wide-angle lens. In the first photo he looks tiny, and in the second positively ginormous. He's in the same room in both shots...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/50 sec, f/4, ISO 4500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tiny Will

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/30 sec, f/4, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Ginormous Will

The square on the floor in front of Will's feet above make it clear that this is a tea room. That bit of tatami mat can be removed, revealing place were a pot of tea can be heated over charcoal (the kind of charcoal, actually, being put to alternative uses as seen here).

Also, compare the ceiling here with that of the waiting room above... the ceiling on the right side of this room (the side for the guest) is of a much higher status than the waiting-room ceiling, which itself is of a higher status than the host-side (left side) of this room . I wish I'd taken a photo of the ceiling in the staff/prep room... I'm sure it would have been of an appropriately-lower class still.

Here's another shot of the same room from the same location with the same lens, but with a composition that looks completely normal this time (no mini/huge effects... just Damien peeking in)...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/50 sec, f/4, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/50 sec, f/4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Kitchenette Shelves
in the staff's prep building

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Path to the Garden

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/125 sec, f/4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Showing us the Main Garden

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 720 — map & image data — nearby photos
Heading In

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Will Baber and our Guide
our gracious host and our guide
(the guide, walking away in the background, has been amateurishly cloned out)

The photo above originally had someone walking away in the background, and I was going to post it here like that, but on a lark I tried painting out the whole guy roughly with Lightroom 5's new Spot Healing Brush. I had absolutely no expectation that the result would be anything but laughable, but to my surprise it was actually pretty good for the 10 seconds of work that I put into it... good enough to spend a bit more time tweaking it. It won't pass even the most basic inspection, but at first glance it's good enough.

Continued here...