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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Moody
Last autumn at the Jingoji Temple (神護寺) in Kyoto Japan

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I'm mixing things up today by dipping into the large backlog of stuff I want to post, to my trip last December to the Jingoji Temple in north-west Kyoto.

今日の写真は去年の秋の神護寺(じんごじ、京都市)の裏にある散歩道。

This location is actually only about a mile away from the Kuuya-taki Waterfall that I've been posting about recently, but it's a very mountainous mile and the two locations feel worlds apart. To drive between them, for example, would take a considerable time because it entails a long loop into the city and back.

I'd made a few introductory posts from that trip, including “On The Path To (and From) Northwest Kyoto's Jingoji Temple”, and one of the temple buildings appeared as “Inspired Artistic Temple Shot By Paul Barr” and its neighbor in the temple complex provided for “Simple Temple Sliding Wall”, but otherwise I've not tapped into the beauty of the place.

But I won't do much in this post, either; all the photos on this post were from a short path in the mountain behind the temple complex.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/4, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Discrete Patches of Color

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Different Patches, Different Angle

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Wider View
this is the path

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/8000 sec, f/4, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dynamic Weather

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It alternated between gloomy and brilliant sun, with the mostly-cloudy sky yielding generally gorgeous light, such as in the lead shot (which is almost straight out of the camera). Later in the day we got some photogenic rain, a big rainbow, and not too bad of a sunset.

A change of lens and a big change in the exposure yields quite different results:

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/500 sec, f/6.3, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Closer To What It Felt Like

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Roots
this area had some character

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Friends
this area had some characters

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Character with Characters

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Busy. Really Busy

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 5600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Alone

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Backlit
I'm a sucker for backlit foliage

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/2000 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sense of Depth

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Due Diligence
but I still had trouble with the results

I'm feeling less and less confident with my technical ability to set a reasonable white balance. I take a lot of white-balance readings like in the photo above, and often when I use them to set the color balance in Lightroom, the image just snaps into place, but it seems equally often that the color gets pushed wildly, often towards what feels unnaturally “overcolored”. I had to manually pull back on most of these because the “correct” color was just off-the-charts orange.

I don't mind making an adjustment to suit to taste, but I'd like to have as a base the technical ability to set the “correct” color, then stray from there if I feel like it, but sometimes I take all the steps that should produce the “correct” color and it looks horribly unrealistic. I wish I knew where I was missing a link.

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Crisp

Picking up from yesterday's “Beyond The Staircase Ruins” from an outing to the Kuuya-taki Waterfall (空也滝) in western Kyoto, this post has a few shots from the short trip back to the road.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
More Interesting Bark
though not as interesting as this tree from earlier in the trip

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 5600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Inexplicable

This picture reflects the style of many of the buildings in the area... rusty corrugated metal, haphazard amateur cement work, dusty bottles.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Overhang

These ferns were parallel with the ground, but floating 10 feet above the ground, sticking out from the top of a wall built into the side of a hill.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/160 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Crumbly

This is the same wall seen in “Beyond The Staircase Ruins”, but from a less edge-on perspective.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/125 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Random Old Wall

As I had done earlier in the day for “Polarizer Examples With the Moss and Ferns of Kyoto's Gioji Temple”, I did some impromptu no-tripod polarizer tests. Here's a long look at the path back to the road...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/200 sec, f/1.8, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/320 sec, f/1.8, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Super-Mini Shrine

Near the road, far from the waterfall and the Kuuya Shrine complex, the stream had what appeared to be a little shrine in it, the size of a small birdhouse. I can't quite tell whether it was supposed to have been there, or was something that a storm had blown into the river and this was merely the spot it was currently resting.

At the road was another path that appeared to lead up the mountain to a temple. Not far along that steep path we came across a sign...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tsukinowa-dera Temple: Open 9:30 ~ 3:30

Well, no problem, it was still just 2:00, and really, how far could it be?

The story of this hike is continued here, but the story of the waterfall itself is continued here....

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/160 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Looking Back
on the road less taken

Picking up the story of last month's visit to the Kuuya-taki Waterfall in western Kyoto, where the story started with “Discovery On The Way to The Waterfall” and, after intermediate posts about bugs and bark, was most recently addressed in “Finally Reaching the Kuuya-taki Waterfall”.

At one point in the approach to the waterfall you pass under the stone shrine gate seen earlier, and from there off to one side are the ruins of an old stone staircase being reclaimed by the mountain. We decided to see where it went.

The staircase is very steep, and barely there. The first third or so ascends one direction at an angle up the mountain, then it bends to go straight up for the rest. The photo above is at the bend, looking back.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Looking Up
from the bend

E-P2 + LUMIX G VARIO 14-45/F3.5-5.6 at an effective 28mm — ¹/15 sec, f/4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Context
Nicolas caught me blinking (cringing?), but it shows the context well
photo by Nicolas Joannin

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Half Way Up

At some point on the way up the side of the mountain becomes reinforced by a traditional Japanese stone wall, suggesting something substantial at the top....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/160 sec, f/1.4, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Edge

Looking beyond the edge to the steep face and its current tangle of vines gives a good feeling of the vibe of the place...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Vibe
steep and spooky

When we got to the top, we discovered...... nothing. It was an area that appears to have been abandoned for decades, mostly devoid of man-made objects, but strewn with overgrown rubble of old tiles and stones, as if they had been discarded here long ago.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Rubble

Most fragments were nondescript, but the broken tile above was one of two bigger ones that had some character.

E-P2 + LUMIX G VARIO 14-45/F3.5-5.6 at an effective 28mm — ¹/15 sec, f/4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
photo by Nicolas Joannin

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Detail

It had two inscriptions on the sides...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Clearly a Date
but I can't make heads or tails of what that date is

As best I can tell this says 「大乙五年八月之新調」 or maybe 「七乙五年八月之新調」, which means “newly made in August of the fifth year of ______”, but I can't tell what the era is. Anyone have any ideas?

Update: According to this helpful comment left below, the date is 1916, and the inscription on the following photo includes the name of the artisan who created the title.

On the other side we find an inscription that I have no clue how to read or what it means...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 5600 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 5600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Looking for Bugs
the tile was mostly hollow

Looking over the edge of the flat area, back down the mountain, revealed more spooky vines...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Looking Down

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

The other tile fragment of note was quite elaborate...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/200 sec, f/2.2, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Heading Back

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Green-Painted Rock
Lichen?

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
More Vines

Continued here...

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/2, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Heading To Gion Matsuri
“yoi-yoi-yoi yama”, the first of three festival evenings

I missed most of Kyoto's Gion Matsuri this year, except for one evening when I stepped out for a few hours with Anthony. Unlike last year where I shot with a massive 300mm f/2 lens, this year photography was secondary, so I just brought along a simple 85mm f/1.4.

No particular theme to today's photos... just snapshots I took along the way.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Minnie

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Shijo St.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sitting Wherever You Can Find a Seat

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 5600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Side Street

The wall of lanterns above (which are really warm orange, but appear white because the color channels were blown out) is on one of the big yamaboko floats that are a major part of the festival. Up inside the top, music was being played for the crowd...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 450 — map & image data — nearby photos
Musicians

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos

The side streets were filled with festival vendors of all types. Here's one where one tries to use a tissue-paper scoop to collect wet marbles...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos

In former times (and still now) you had to try to collect as many goldfish as you could from a bin of water before the tissue broke, and you could take them home (where they presumably soon found their way to the toilet). This version with marbles seems better.

The tissue breaks very quickly once it gets wet, and I don't think the girl above got any marbles, but an older boy had a great technique where he held the thing vertically to put most of the weight of the marble on the plastic rim, and he was scooping them up...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Good Technique
certainly quite satisfying

However, at this vendor you could pay a bit extra and get as many marbles as you could transfer with two big plastic scoops:

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Jackpot
perhaps less satisfying, but you get a lot of marbles

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.6, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Disgusting

This disgusting stall featured a lady who would lean directly over... waaaay over... the cooking food when exchanging money with customers, with her cigarette sporting a long trail of ash. Ugh.

Another stall seemed a bit more sanitary...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Candy Apples

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Candy Pot

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Another Large Float
featuring a small tea room in front

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Open-Air Tea Room

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Tea Girls

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Adult Girls
enjoying an adult beverage

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
Cucumbers on a Stick
refreshing cool snack on its own, but also great with beer

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 11400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Chicken Skewers
apologizing to potential customers about the wait needed until they're done
( we had a bunch of these; they were great )

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 12800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Heading Home
I wonder what will become of the massive blow-up cartoon hammer

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 12800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Festive Mood

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 12800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Photo Op

Looking at the “nearby photos” under any of these will likely bring you to lots of photos from last year's many outings.

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It's been a long week as my boy had surgery to repair a broken finger (all appears to have gone well), so I'll try to get back in the groove with a rambling post on a flash flood in Kyoto last weekend. There were about two hours of intense rain in the middle of the night...

Intense Rain
Kyoto is the black dot to the lower-right of center

A couple of hours later, the accumulated water had washed down through the mountains to Kyoto...

Quite a Bit Higher Than Normal
prefectural water-control camera on the Kamo River at the Sanjo Bridge

To give an idea for how much water is rushing by, this is the same bridge seen in this photo from an earlier post:

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 280 — map & image data — nearby photos
Low Water

The elevation descends fairly quickly as the river flows from north to south, so the water is positively rushing by at breakneck speed. This quick flow generally clears things out quickly, but 3½ inches/hour of rain for a couple of hours will fill things up quickly.

iPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — ¹/2800 sec, f/2.4, ISO 64 — map & image data — nearby photos
Pretty Zippy Flow
a few hours after the peak

I had this same area on my blog for the same reason two years ago, in “Kyoto Kamo River Flooding: Sanjo”. This time I didn't know about it until after the fact, but this one seems to have been worse.

iPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — ¹/2800 sec, f/2.4, ISO 64 — map & image data — nearby photos
Remnants

The monument thing in the foreground had an engraved faceplate ripped off by the current. I happen to have snapped a shot of the area a few days earlier, where you can see a couple of people sitting in front of the monument to the far right of the frame...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/80 sec, f/1.4, ISO 11400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Earlier

(You can also see it, still intact, during the previous flood here).

If you ever visit Kyoto and walk along the nice paths on either side of the river, you'll see these monument things every so often, with maps showing where you can enter/exit the paths. For reference, I happened to have some snapshots of other markers at other times...

iPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — ¹/640 sec, f/2.4, ISO 64 — map & image data — nearby photos

iPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — ¹/4000 sec, f/2.4, ISO 64 — map & image data — nearby photos

I walked along the river for quite a distance during the walk that produced “Informal GPS Logger Test: iPhone 4s GPS is Shockingly Good”, when I also snapped those two shots above.

Anyway, the rapid rise and fall left quite a bit of debris...

iPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/2.4, ISO 64 — map & image data — nearby photos

iPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — ¹/730 sec, f/2.4, ISO 64 — map & image data — nearby photos

iPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — ¹/1700 sec, f/2.4, ISO 64 — map & image data — nearby photos

iPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — ¹/2500 sec, f/2.4, ISO 64 — map & image data — nearby photos
Newly-Laid Sod
this area just had sod laid earlier this month

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/80 sec, f/1.4, ISO 10000 — map & image data — nearby photos
A Few Days Earlier

One thing Japan Inc. has never figured out is how to make a nice lawn, so the flood merely hastened what would naturally happen. The brown area beyond the newly-laid sod in the photo above was new itself about a year or so ago (you can see it on this post) and is already a total loss. I don't know why they ever bother. But I noticed someone placing cones when I went by yesterday, so I suppose they'll give it another try.

This “flooding” is nothing compared to what was happening in south-west Japan during the same period, with mudslides and lots of deaths, but the same rain would have been much worse here in years past. Sometime in the mid 1900s the river was drastically widened and deepened, creating a man-made flood-control channel.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 — ¹/3200 sec, f/2, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sculpted
a bit up river, taken on my Kyoto Marathon outing in March

Prior to that the shallow river would flood regularly, causing havoc for the folks who lived in the otherwise-prime real-estate. They were probably prepared for the common flood like this, but one would suppose that a bigger flood every 10 or 20 years, especially in the middle of the night like this one, would be a real disaster.