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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tiny Bouquet
among the moss at the Kongorinji Temple (金剛輪寺), Shiga Prefecture, Japan

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Yesterday during my visit to Shiga Prefecture’s Kongorinji Temple (金剛輪寺), I came across some very delicate (very tiny) flowers among the moss, replete with tiny red berries that looked like apples.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/4, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Baby Apple
berry of some kind not much larger than a pinhead

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Missing
Looks like the flower on the left lost its petals

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Found

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 140 — map & image data — nearby photos
Wider View

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Different View
the many different layers with different focus may be interesting, or annoying...

Continued here...

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Nagoya Japan's “Leaning Towers of Vertigo”
(screenshot taken in 2007)

In tidying up some of my blog infrastructure today, I came across a short post that I wrote in 2007 but had not published, so I'll go ahead and share it now.

I'm used to the sometimes-odd views one sees in Google Maps due to differing photos being stitched together or other random oddness, but sometimes the final effect still gives a startling vertigo-like effect, as in the snippet above from Nagoya, Japan.

The snippet above was captured in 2007. The current Google imagery for that location also exhibits multiple different perspectives in very close proximity, though the effect is not as pronounced as before. The stitching is first class... I don't see where they stitch the images together, but I wonder why they would do it on a building-by-building basis. If the images are from a satellite, there seems to be at least three different perspectives, though it's possible the images are from a low-flying plane, in which case maybe there are only two perspectives. Hard to tell.

The story of Google Maps from start to finish would be a fascinating read.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Small Ditch
Kongorinji Temple (金剛輪寺), Western Shiga, Japan

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Today was another fun but exhausting day of photography with Belgian Damien Douxchamps on his last day visiting from near Tokyo. The other day I posed some desktop backgrounds from Temples in north-east Kyoto, from our outing two days ago. Yesterday we spent quite a bit of inspiring time at the Honnen-in Temple, but the cursory glance I gave to my photos last night gave me a strong “one of those days when it just doesn't work” feelings, so no post yesterday.

Today we went to the Kongourinji Temple an hour's drive from Kyoto, in Shiga Prefecture. I've posted much about this place (first in “First Taste of Fall Colors at Shiga’s Amazing Kongourinji Temple” from a trip about this time of the season, two years ago), though I've barely scratched the surface on what I want to present, so today's haul of 500+ photos merely adds to my ever-increasing todo list. It's a nice problem to have.

It's still early in the fall-color season, so I'd guess that the temple grounds are a mere 5% of the way toward peak color...

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Most Trees Still Green
Kongorinji Temple (金剛輪寺)

... but there are some definite splashes of color...

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/4, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
A Few Areas of Color
Kongorinji Temple (金剛輪寺)

We spent 5½ hours, mostly having the whole place to ourselves. I'll probably go back in a couple of weeks, to what I'm sure will be a packed madhouse. We'll see.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Subdued Colors
on a bed of moss

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There's much more to see besides the foliage. I hope to have the energy to post about it.... sometime. 🙂

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sitting Room
Kongorinji Temple (金剛輪寺)

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Continued here...

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tinge of Fall
Shisendo Temple (詩仙堂), Kyoto Japan

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I'm exhausted after a long day of photography in north-east Kyoto, temple hopping with Damien Douxchamps visiting from Tsukuba (near Tokyo). Today's post is just a few quick pictures I picked out from two of the places.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/3.5, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Slanted
tatami mats, bamboo, and my socks

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 140 — map & image data — nearby photos
Preparing for Winter

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Starburst
Not as wild as a passion-fruit flower, but still pretty wild

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/125 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Lunch
Green tea and a sweet, at the Rurikou-in Temple ( 瑠璃光院 ), Kyoto Japan
(I normally don't eat lunch, but made an exception when Damien treated)

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I used the polarizer filter today quite a bit (with moss and the leaves), and tried the shot above with a polarizer, without a polarizer, and at half power, and found that it looked best without. Without the white sheen of the reflections in the lower half of the photo (something the polarizer was quite effective at removing), the tray with the tea and sweet was dark and indistinct.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 10000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Step
Yellow stepping-stone island in a lake of gray stone
Rurikou-in Temple ( 瑠璃光院 )

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Indistinct
Rurikou-in Temple ( 瑠璃光院 )

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That last one might be a bit disconcerting until you know what's going on (and perhaps even after). The focus is on the floorboards, so the garden beyond the windows is all out of focus, but more than that, you're looking at the out-of-focus garden through old panes of glass that have developed strong ripples over the decades. It was pretty in real life; I'm not sure that the photo is anything but annoying, but we'll see.

Continued here (sort of)... or maybe here or maybe here or here, etc., etc., etc. It was a busy week.

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/10, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Private Entrance
at the Myouhouin Temple (妙法院), Kyoto Japan

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妙法院（京都市東山区)の景色。この記事の写真は処理過剰ばっかりですが、今日はそんな気分です。 （今週は特別拝観が有ります。お寺の中は中々美しいですが、残念ながら中では撮影禁止）。

I paid my first visit to the Myouhouin Temple (妙法院) in eastern Kyoto yesterday. The buildings are closed to the public except for early November, so I took the opportunity to visit on the first day of this year's open house.

The good news is that the buildings and inner gardens and many artifacts on display were magnificently beautiful, but the bad news is that photography was not allowed at all. Still, well worth the ¥800 if you can get there before the open house ends on the 18th.

The first building you enter on the open-house tour is, apparently, the old kitchen, and I heard that it might be open to the public all year. It's amazing... you can look up four stories' worth of massive rough-hewn beams leading to what looks a bit like steeple or belfry, but merely acted like chimney. You can see the outside view of the building in the last photo on this post.

The outside grounds seem to be always open and free to visit, and being the only place I could use the camera, so I availed myself of the opportunity.

Most of the photos on this post suffer from “an abundance of heavy-handed post processing”; that's apparently the mood I'm in today. C'est la vie (parfois).

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/5, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Busy
Entrance Gate of the Myouhouin Temple

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Fringed

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.8, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Old and Old
The camera was old and the lens hazed over

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 140 — map & image data — nearby photos
Together

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/4.5, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos
“No”
Zak Braverman's answer to my asking whether this had any artistic merit
( I'd asked about the color version; it seems to have more merit as a B&W )

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Simple

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Slightly Off Kilter

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bud
I don't understand how this branch can still have a bud

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bend

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/8, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Cliché side of Gritty

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/8, ISO 10000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Connecting Levels

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/8, ISO 7200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Twisted

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 720 — map & image data — nearby photos
Rising Flame

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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Carving Detail

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/9, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Kitchen Building
of the Myouhouin Temple (妙法院), as mentioned in the prose above