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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
It Must Be Autumn in Kyoto
time for the annual trek to the Nishimura Stonecarver's back garden

Paul Barr is in Kyoto again, and we made a trip to the back gardens of Nishimura Stone Lanterns, behind their stone-carving workshop, as we did last year. Even after all the posts last year (enough to merit a “Nishimura Stonecarvers” category on my blog), including a 51-photo “overview” post, there was much left to explore at the gardens.

Unfortunately, despite our visit being 10 days earlier than last year's, the fall colors were mostly gone and the trees bare, and to make it worse, someone had just cleaned up all the photogenically-endearing leaves from the paths. But on the bright side, that someone was the wife of Daizo Nishimura, the affable fifth-generation carver I'd met before. He was out of town, but she and I had a nice chat.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Clean Sweep

It was decidedly less photogenic a place than last year, but still magical.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/4, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Last Bits of Sun

It's on the south slope of a mountain, so it gets very little sun.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/1.4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sharp

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Creamy

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/4, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hairy

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
Moss: Wide View

There are all kinds of mosses growing naturally all over the carvings and the paths and such, all beautiful. Some, like in the two shots above, have a forest of bits sticking out, and I thought the Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 might have some fun with it, so here's a close up of the moss on the left side of the lantern in the photo above...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Moss: Close Up

This is viewed straight on, of course, with the shallow depth of field focused on the tops of the “forest” putting the bulk of the moss into a blur. It's quite a different look than the from-the-side extreme seen in this shot (of an apparently different kind of moss, but you get the idea).

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Working It
the orange background splash comes from a tree on the neighboring property

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Contented

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Twins

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/160 sec, f/8, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Angles

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This is the roof of the gazebo, at an angle. It might be too disconcerting to be a desktop background, but I thought I'd give it a try. (I tend to like geometric-inspired compositions, such as this collection from the summer, or this one from a couple of years ago.)

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 720 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sorta Okay
the one bit of color still around

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Much Better
neighbor's tree

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Next door is the well-hidden Nitenji Temple, from which I posted a few shots last year, but I've still not done a proper writeup. Too. Much. Richness. In. Kyoto. I could never take another picture and still write a post a day for years with all I've got waiting in my archives.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Somebody Has a New Hat

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 280 — map & image data — nearby photos
Very, Very Old
( I'll touch base on this basin again later in this post )

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/8, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Discards

I call these the “gardens”, but that's not really the appropriate word. The current head of the family (the 72-year-old fourth-generation stone carver Kenzo Nishimura) created this area 20 or so years ago as a way to house and display their inventory, and to make it so that it could be enjoyed. But odds and ends have to end up somewhere, and all stone can be reused, so some areas pile up like this. This apparently fascinates me, because I took a similar picture of this area last year.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 @ 24 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Just a bit Ungainly
an artist suffers for his craft

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/4, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Big Spoon

Paul and I noticed this big rock as being new the moment we arrived, and wondered what it was. I had neglected to ask the fifth-generation's wife earlier, but was lucky to still be there when the aforementioned fourth-generation current head of the family, Kenzo Nishimura, happen to return from an outing and proceeded to give us an impromptu grand tour. I found his Japanese particularly difficult to understand, but the stories of his history and of specific pieces were quite interesting.

Upon hearing that I am American, he mentioned that he'll be in The States in a few months to deliver a five-ton piece that's been commissioned, and that he'd helped with “that Oracle guy's” garden in California.

I asked about the big spoon (my name for it), and it seems to date back to the Edo period, perhaps a few hundred years. As best I could understand, the “handle” part sticks up out of the ground, with the rest used to anchor the piece firmly. The top has a hole upon which a wooden beam pivots, filling with water from a waterfall and falling to the ground, spilling its water, and rising up again to start the process over. I see small versions of this kind of thing at temples, where the cross beam is made of bamboo, and makes a resonate “bonk” when it hits the ground. This one is 20× larger, so I would have liked to have seen it in action.

Nishimura-san suggested how parts of it might be used if it's not used for its original purpose again. The handle part, for example, could be the main span of a small stone bridge.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 @ 24 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1400 — full exif & map — nearby photos
Personal Tour
from the head of the house, Kenzo Nishimura

All of the rocks here are very old, of course (likely hundreds of millions of years old), but the carvings mostly date back to the Edo Period (1603-1868), with a fair number going back to the Kamakura Period (1185-1333). However, the simple stone basin pictured above and in “Very, Very Old” dates from, I think he said, the Asuka Period (538-710). He has some other pieces even older, but he explained so much about so many pieces, I can't remember clearly what was what.

(When I'd talked to his son last year, his son had said that the oldest pieces dated to the Kamakura Period, but I realize now that he must have been speaking of only stone lanterns, and not all carvings.)

After we were done with the back gardens, we moved to the front gardens, which I haven't really posted about before, so yet another thing added to the backlog of stuff I want to share...

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Today is a national holiday of some sort in Japan, so we took a drive out to the mountains to take some photos for our Christmas and New-Year's cards. We wanted to go somewhere pretty but uncrowded, and since it was a mad house in Kyoto, we headed out to the same area as in my previous post, “Beating the Crowds at the Middle-of-Nowhere Sokushouji Temple”. We got our photos, and since we were in the neighborhood, I wanted to show Fumie and Anthony the temple...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 280 — map & image data — nearby photos
View from the Parking Lot
Autumn colors, even past their peak, pique one's interest

The roof near the top of the steps is for a little seating/rest area, and beyond that is the temple itself...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Temple Visit
Sokushouji Temple (息障寺), Shiga Japan

Turning back and looking beyond the rest area and the top of the stairs, there's a hint of a structure...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
More Awaits
much more

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/1.4, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bell Tower

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/1.4, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Ringing the Huge Bell
a single hit with the log the rope is attached to yields a long, deep, resonating boooooooooing

From the bell tower, the temple complex spreads up the mountain, with parts peeking out here and there...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
Layers

I'd ventured to the top with Shimada-san when I came the other day, and so with all the photos from three trips in two weeks, a full writeup on this place is definitely on my to-do list, but today, this short excursion was the extent of out visit. (It was only 2:30pm, but it was already getting dark nestled in this cranny of the mountain.)

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Heading Home

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 @ 24 mm — ¹/2500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Admiring the View
it's something you earn after the climb to get there

Two weeks ago, in the “Bridges Across a Small Valley in Konan” post about an impromptu far-flung photogenically-inquisitive scooter ride, I noted that the trip had produced some delights to post about. One was an out-of-the-way temple not far from the bridges that I discovered at dusk, but it turns out that I wasn't able to get around to posting about it because I've had a really busy time since, with photographically productive visits to the Kongourinji, Konzou, Koutouin, Eikando, Sanzen'in, and Yoshiminedera Temples.

But despite not having had time to post about it, I went back to visit again today, hoping find more daylight than I had the first time. My friend Shimada-san joined me. Even though we got there at 1:30pm, it was already mostly bathed in shade. It's nestled deep in a niche of a steep mountain. Still, it was gorgeous.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 @ 24 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/1.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Today's Autumn-Festooned Temple
Sokushouji Temple (息障寺)
in-the-middle-of-nowhere, Japan

As with all my recent trips, I've got tons of great photos, but no energy to even look through them yet. I guess I'll be posting foliage shots through to next spring.

Today was an absolute madhouse in this part of Kyoto, because of all the beautiful temples and shrines. I'm walking distance from some of the most famous in all Japan (Heian Shrine, Nanzen Temple, Eikando Temple, Kiyomizu Temple, and many more), but I was not interested in the oppressive weekend crowds, so thought to revisit the 1,000-year-old middle-of-nowhere temple I'd discovered two weeks ago.

I knew the drive there would be easy once I got out of the craziness that is this part of Kyoto during this time of year, so I mapped out a smart but convoluted route that would put me on the easiest path out of town, and it was going smoothly for me — the opposite direction was always a parking lot, but I had planned well — until I simply forgot to make a turn, and that few-seconds slip cost me 25 minutes because to do a U-turn I now needed to drive in the parking-lot-lane direction. Sigh.

But it was worth it. In the short hour and a half that we were at the Sokushouji Temple, we saw only two other people, a couple with a kid my age who, like us, had walked all the way up the path above the temple (and above the shade, into the sun) to enjoy the view...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 @ 24 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Shimada-san and The Teeming Masses
we four had the mountain to ourselves

It was actually a little more crowded than that.... later I noticed two mountain bikes down at the parking lot below the temple, but we never did see their riders.

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Question Was, What am I?

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/40 sec, f/22, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Answer Is, A Bunch of Offering Statuettes
At the Sanzen'in Temple (三千院), Kyoto Japan

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The other day I posted the first photo above as one of my “What am I?” quizzes. The second photo shows the same view, but with a smaller aperture and the focus on the foreground.

Here's the view from the front:

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos
View from the Front

I posed the quiz as being a simple one to anyone familiar with the Internet because all one had to do was click on the “nearby photos” link under the photo (as I have under almost all photos I post) to find out that I had previously blogged a post titled “A Bazillion Offering Statuettes at the Sanzen-in Temple”, showing photos of the statuettes in the immediate vicinity of the quiz photo.

I lead that older post with a shot similar to this:

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Very Isolated

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Except that this time they were bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun, and I used my true-macro Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 to isolate the point-of-focus statue even further. It's not my normal desktop-background fare, but I thought I'd give it a try and offer desktop-background sizes as well.

The mostly-creamy nature of the version above might work okay for a desktop background, but as a photo I think it's a bit too unbalanced, so for, er, balance, here's one with a wider depth of field...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/8, ISO 5600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Less Isolated @ f/8

There were a lot of statuettes...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 @ 24 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos

Really a lot...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos

More over here...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm — ¹/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
End of the Line

So there are just over 15,000 of them with labels, but there were racks and racks of unlabeled ones as well, waiting, I suppose, for sponsors.

Some were off-colored and dusty...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/4, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos

Some were adorned with ornaments...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/4, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Mini Sandals
like those in this post

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Various Ornaments

This is all just one display shoved in the corner of a far-flung area of a huge temple complex, but it's visually interesting so it seems to catch my eye each time.

Of course, with a visit in autumn, the fall colors are the main attraction. In keeping with yesterday's post about yesterday's visit to the Yoshiminedera Temple where I showed the first photo I took that day, here's the first photo I took during last week's trip to the Sanzen'in Temple (where I later took all the shots shown above)...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
First Photo of a Productive Day

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I've provided desktop-background sizes for three photos on this post, but it's this last one that I'm most looking forward to using myself. I've been posting a lot of these lately... it's just such a photogenic time to be in Kyoto.

Continued here...

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Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
First Photo Today
9:41AM, Yoshiminedera Temple (善峯寺), Kyoto Japan

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/800 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
One in the Middle
155 shots later, 11:06AM

I'd gone out to the mountains with Paul Barr today, intending to retrace the steps of last week's temple hopping in the mountains of south-western Kyoto, but we were so consumed by the beauty at the first stop, the Yoshiminedera Temple (about which I still have 500+ photos from last week to sift through) that we didn't do much else.

But still, in the late afternoon on the way home, between episodes of getting soaked in the rain, we did happen upon a small temple that we took a few minutes to explore.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
In The Fading Dusk
one of the last photos of the day
photo #664 of the day, 4:17PM, Shouhouji Temple (正法寺)

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Heading Home

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I've got such a backlog of photos from the last week or so to check out and post... photographing autumn colors in Kyoto is like shooting fish in a barrel... with dynamite.