Photo - Photographs: March 2005 Archives

I met this fellow while walking in the Bunkyo ward of Tokyo last November. It was a gorgeous autumn day and I was on my way to a Center for Independent Living for people with disabilities in the area. For some reason, Bunkyo ward has a lot of cemetaries and Buddhist temples. In Japan, we associate Buddhism with death and burial rituals. The cat is sitting on a family gravestone -- most people in Japan are cremated and buried in family plots. To the right of the cat is a wooden placard, made by the temple priest. It reads "Namu-ami-dabutsu" (南無阿弥陀仏) and is a prayer to the Boddhisatva Amitabha/Amida who promises that all believers who chant this will be given everlasting life in the Pure Land. For more information, google the Jodo Sect of Buddhism.

Equipment: Leica M7, 90mm f/2 Summicron, Fuji Provia 100F.

Behind the temple pagoda is a powerful, highly collimated white spotlight. It appears in all of the photographs as a comet-like beam.

Equipment: Canon 10D; EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L; Velbon Charmagne tripod; Acratech Ultimate head. Settings: f/3.5 1/4 sec @ ISO 800.

Kyoto is having its annual festival of flowers and lights (a loose translation of 京都・花灯路). The path from Chionji Temple to Kiyomizu Temple is lined with lanterns and large flower arrangements. This festival extends from March 11th to the 21st. All of the shrines and temples are open until 9:30pm and are lit up splendidly.

Kiyomizu Temple (above) is one of Kyoto's most beautiful temples and certainly the best place to see the city at night. Unfortunately, it's only open in the evening a few times a year. If you wear a kimono, all of the buses and subways as well as all of the temples and shrines will give you free admission during the festival period. Alas, my kimono is in St. Paul. The irony.

I have about 200 photos from this evening. I'll be posting them slowly to this blog and then later uploading them to my gallery. Oops, it looks like I have to fix my Photoshop copyright stamp script, it's now 2 years out of date. Just noticed that...

Equipment: Canon 10D; EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L; Velbon Charmagne tripod; Acratech Ultimate head. Settings: f/3.5 1/2 sec @ ISO 800.