Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/640 sec, f/1.4, ISO 720 — map & image data — nearby photos
Waiting, Waiting, Fervently Waiting
for world peace that never comes

at the Otaginenbutsuji Temple (愛宕念仏寺)
Kyoto Japan

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The New York Times Travel section recently published the article “36 Hours in Kyoto, Japan” (thanks Ed Pouso for the link), and one of the locations the author visited is the delightful Otaginenbutsuji Temple (愛宕念仏寺) in the northern Arashiyama area of Kyoto.

I thought it was a missed opportunity that the article didn't include a photo from the temple, which reminded me that although I've visited the temple twice, in both the spring and fall of 2012, I'd not yet gotten around to posting anything. My own missed opportunity, of which my photo catalog holds so many. Sigh. So until I can do a full-on post, here are a few desktop backgrounds of some of the 1,200 statues — ranging from whimsical and silly to serious and pious — that dot and fill the mountainside location.

(The author of the NYT article writes the name of the temple as “Otagi Nenbutsu-ji”, but in this post I write it the way the temple itself writes it: “Otaginenbutsuji Temple”. In any case, the actual name is “愛宕念仏寺”.)

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 450 — map & image data — nearby photos
Private Meditation

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/160 sec, f/1.4, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nodding Off

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/640 sec, f/1.4, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Friendship, Love, and Hope

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/160 sec, f/1.4, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
Deep
this has an intensity I'm unable to put into words

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Among Friends

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To be clear, the captions are the feelings that I ascribe to the statue as I look at them today while writing this post. I don't know what the original sculptors intended to convey, but I suspect the point of the collection is to let each piece evoke in the viewer whatever it evokes. Along those lines, perhaps I should not put any caption at all.... (?)

Continued here...