Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 280 — map & image data — nearby photos
Imposing
Paul Barr photographs the garden / sales floor / warehouse of Nishimura Stone Lanterns
Kyoto, Japan

The other day in “Nishimura Stone Lanterns: the Workshop” I introduced the workshop of a fifth-generation stone-carving shop in north-east Kyoto that Paul Barr and I “discovered” the other day.

Next to and beside their shop are areas just teeming with a huge variety of stone carvings. I assume it's their “warehouse” and sales floor (so to speak), but I'm not really sure. It sure looked pretty if you stuck your head in a bit to look.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 34 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
View from the Street
the workshop is part of the same building, out of frame to the right

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 34 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Venturing In
just a bit

Paul is standing just behind the old discarded cutting wheels featured in the Fairly Dirty “What am I?” Quiz the other day.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Side Garden

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 58 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Lots and Lots of Stuff

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Back Garden

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Random Stone Decorations
tucked away wherever there was space; this is in front of the house

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Oops
closeup of the item in the bottom of the previous picture

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
“I Laugh at your Decomposable Body”
( I suspect that is not the thought the carver had in mind )

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/400 sec, f/2, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Older than Most
or so it seems

I use “Preview” in the title of this post because tomorrow we'll visit again. I've prearranged a chat with the carvers, and I expect we'll get to forage in the gardens with our cameras. Should be most excellent.

Continued here...

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Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
“Dreamy Creamy”

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The initial destination of my photo outing with Paul Barr yesterday (the one where we discovered the workshop of Nishimura Stone Lanterns) was to visit the Nitenji Temple, nestled up in the mountains of north-east Kyoto, perched precariously over the ravine on the road over to Otsu.

After the outing, we returned to my place and I introduced Lightroom to him, and in using random photos from the day to demonstrate things you could do within Lightroom's Develop module, I happened upon the soft-focus creamy effect you see above. I liked the effect in this case, so I decided to keep it. (It's fairly related to what I described in “Funky Joy With Adobe Lightroom”, and close in effect to the “Artsy-Fartsy 1” photo on “Cherry Blossoms in the Rain at the Heian Shrine, Part 2”)

I'll post a proper writeup of the Nitenji Temple when I have more energy another day, but I wanted to post something tonight, so here are a few shots from the temple grounds...

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hangers On

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/8, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Outbuilding

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Pathway Light
( reminds me of this photo from last year )

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Paul and the Outbuilding

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Original Photo
for the dreamy-creamy version seen above

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NOTE: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Work in Progress
Nishimura Stone Lanterns' workshop
Kyoto, Japan

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Measure Once, Cut Twice
or something like that

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/320 sec, f/2, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Almost Done

Out on a photo hunt with Paul Barr yesterday, we happened upon a stonecarver's shop, less than 200 yards from the site of the mysterious cut stones I posted about a few days ago. There's a real chance that they're related, though at this point it still seems very strange. (UPDATE: I later asked, and found out that the stones are sort of their overflow inventory.)

The relatively modern (within the last 30 years) workshop is right on the street, but without signage of any type....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Workshop
blink and you'll miss it

There's not much around there... a few houses, a temple, a pet cemetery, and then the road just disappears....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 66 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Looking up the Mountain

But if you happen to look in as you pass, you see a simple stone-carver's shop...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/3.5, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
Looking In

I later learned that it's the “Nishimura Stone Lantern Shop” (西村石灯呂店), now headed by Kenzo Nishimura, a fourth-generation stone carver born in 1938. His oldest son, Daizo, was born in 1964. Both have achieved official designation as “artisan of Japanese traditional crafts” (工芸伝統士), an honor bestoed on each after their first 20 or so years in the trade.

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tools of the Trade
in a thick bed of stone dust

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Just Like My Garage
except for the priceless stone lanterns lying around like old paint buckets
and also except for the fact that living in Japan, I no longer have a garage

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
Modern, Cutting-Edge Workshop
Breakers, Calendar, and Brooms

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Chisels.... Lots of Chisels

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/8, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Plans
for a lantern that sells for about $90,000

Driving back past the workshop after returning to my scooter, we saw that the workmen (likely Mr. Nishimura and his son) had returned from lunch and were busy pounding away with mallet and chisel. We didn't have time to stop, having earlier already lingered as long as our schedule dare allowed, but we intend to return later this week.

I found this link to a video of the elder Nishimura demonstrating stonecarving to a group of video-challenged ladies. (Skip the first minute... I think the lady didn't realize it was filiming.)

This area of Kyoto (kitashirakawa) used to have a lot of stonemason workshops, but over the years the number has dwindeled to three, among them only one (this one) still doing the work by hand.

The Nishimura's sorta-modern workshop was interesting, but stone carving at this site dates back five generations to the Edo period (to at least prior to 1886), and so the areas on either side of it were *magical* for our cameras, littered with generations of lanterns and other stone-carved items.

Continued here...

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 36 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/6.3, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
What am I?

I was out with Paul Barr (he of the dubious camera-stabilization technique 🙂 ) and came across a sight that he suggested would make a good “What am I?” Quiz, and I readily agreed.

Continued here... (though, here's a direct link to the answer).

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 62 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Finely Carved Junk
or so it seems

In yesterday's “Fall Colors in Nature, as Nature Intended” I wrote about an area of (what I think is) natural-growth deciduous trees in a long ravine along the mountain road between Kyoto and Otsu. In using the phrase “as nature intended”, I meant to contrast the exquisite (but planned) landscaping of large temples like Eikando. I did not, however, mean to imply that nature intended such a gorgeous display of color to be marred by ugly visual pollution like guardrails, telephone poles, and junk.

But, like most areas of nature in Japan that are accessible to people, junk was aplenty, roughly in proportion to the natural beauty. (At first this “beauty equals garbage” tautology broke my heart, and then as I got into photography, it created exceptional composition challenges..... but sadly, I'm now jaded to it and it's just one negative aspect of the place. Sigh.)

Anyway, I mentioned in yesterday's post that there were a bunch of cut stones apparently discarded by the side of the road, seemingly having been there for many years.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/8, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Piled Up Behind the Guardrail

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Makes for a Solid Barrier
the river is at left, way down below

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/4, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/4, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/2, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
( I wonder whether this'll make a nice desktop-background image? )

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 26 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — ¹/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Edgy

Some of these have a vaguely HDRish feel because I felt compelled to use Lightroom's “fill light” to bring up the darkness of the stones in the shade. The photo immediately above, though, had an edgy feel to begin with, which I then further encouraged with Lightroom's positive clarity (to get the opposite of the soft-glow effect that negative clarity brings).

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Stone that Rolled Down Into the River
alongside the requisite random river trash

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 26 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Color Check
with the handy WhiBal I keep in my bag

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 44 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
Signed and Numbered

The stones were in many shapes and conditions, but I could find writing on only two. I can't read what's on the one above, though it certainly seems like writing. Whatever it is looks like it ends with “130”, but I'm not sure.

And on another, after pushing back some accumulated decaying leaves, I found...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 48 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos
(For the) Village Safety

I'd left my scooter at a less narrow arrow just up the road a bit, and after returning to it and passing back this way, I noticed that someone else had stopped to take pictures of the leaves. I stopped and asked whether he knew the story behind the stones; he did not, but suspected that they had been dumped there nefariously in the dead of night some long time ago. His curiosity piqued, he said he'd ask the local police, and let me know what he finds out. Cool.

Later in my short but fruitful exploration of the area, I found some things that might offer ideas about this pile's origins.... we'll see.

UPDATE: it turns out that these are owned by the nearby Nishimiura Stone Lanterns company. They use it as sort of an overflow warehouse. I guess big stones don't really mind if they fall into the river... at least so long as they're not left for more than a few hundred years.

Continued here...