Another “Tea and Sweets in Front of a Temple Garden” Shot (or 10)

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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/125 sec, f/1.4, ISO 560 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Your Tea is Served

well, my tea is served

at the Jikkouin Temple (実光院), Kyoto Japan
Desktop-Background Versions

1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600  ·  2880×1800

Every time I revisit my Lightroom library from last autumn's many photo outings, I find so many things waiting to be posted. Now if only I could find the time to post. Last week's “Views at the Honen'in
Temple” was one attempt to catch up, and today's little post is
another.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/125 sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Ready to Enjoy
Vertical Desktop-Background Versions



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The whole “tea and sweets in front of the garden” experience is naturally
inviting to the camera[sort of], but particularly since taking this shot last
November, I've been giving it more attention. Other recent examples
include this and this.

Getting a nice shot is tougher than you might imagine, mostly because of
other people: unless you've got the place to yourself, others might be in
your way or in your light (or in your view in the garden), and more importantly, you
don't want to be a disturbing influence to others.

I also still don't have a good sense of what aperture to use
(that is, how much background blur to create). To cover my basses at least to some extent, I took the above scene at three different apertures... sweep the mouse
side to side over the photo below to see them:

div#dkiuPBQydQydfcA img { width:439px; height:690px; visibility:hidden; position:absolute; top:0; left:0; border: solid 10px #311}








Animatable — slowly sweep mouse from side to side to view effect
写真の上をマウスで左右にゆっくり動かすといろいろな影響を見えます。
f/1.4  ·  f/4.5  ·  f/10
1)return true;var x=Math.floor((e.clientX||e.pageX)/BW);if(X==0)X=x;else if(x!=X){var which=x>X?i+(x-X):i-(X-x);if(which>=I.length)which=I.length==2?0:I.length-1;else if(which

As you can see, I went with the middle one to give at least some sense of the garden without distracting with too much detail.

The garden itself is nice, but better in person than in a photograph. Just to give an idea, here's a quick snap:

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
map & image data — nearby photos

So-so Snapshot

of the nice garden at the Jikkouin Temple (実光院)

Compare this to
the garden at the Daihouin Temple (大法院),
or at the Enkouji Temple (圓光寺), among others,
and you'll see what I mean. Still, there are many areas in the temple gardens that are exquisite;
we'll see more from this temple in a later post.

Back to the tea-and-sweets shot above (the vertical desktop-background
one), now that I look at it in the context of this article, I think it's
cropped a bit too tightly. I do have another sequence of shots from a bit further back;
I'm not sure why I didn't choose one of them:

div#dkiuPBQydQydfcD img { width:437px; height:699px; visibility:hidden; position:absolute; top:0; left:0; border: solid 10px #311}









Animatable — slowly sweep mouse from side to side to view effect
写真の上をマウスで左右にゆっくり動かすといろいろな影響を見えます。
f/10  ·  f/5  ·  f/1.8  ·  f/1.4
1)return true;var x=Math.floor((e.clientX||e.pageX)/BW);if(X==0)X=x;else if(x!=X){var which=x>X?i+(x-X):i-(X-x);if(which>=I.length)which=I.length==2?0:I.length-1;else if(which

In this sequence, I didn't use Lightroom's amazing lens-correction
profiles to remove the natural vignetting of the lens when it's wide open,
so it's readily apparent here. I think it “works” well in this composition,
at least better than it would have in the tighter sequence above, which is
why I removed it there.

If I were to spend some time with this sequence, I'd
adjust the crop to center the tea and sweets a
bit better, but that ship has sailed; I
started writing this post three days ago and it just does not want
to get finished, so I'm cutting corners.

I'll close this post with a shot of Paul Barr next to me, attempting his
own version of a “tea and sweets” shot, while someone further down the line
is receiving their refreshments.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/125 sec, f/1.4, ISO 280 —
map & image data — nearby photos


[footnote]

Near the top I wrote:

The whole “tea and sweets in front of the garden” experience is naturally
inviting to the camera.

I should point out that the experience is intended to be
naturally inviting to a calm, serene mind, and that whipping out a camera
and clicking away is pretty much missing the whole point.

I realize this, but have found that I personally get much more serenity
this way. I guess to me, using the camera — and trying to express through it
— is foremost a soothing, healing experience (despite often being a source
of great frustration).

I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom this is true, but everyone
feeling this way must remember not to be an impediment to other's
more-traditional sense of enjoyment (to not “disturb their wa”, so
to speak). To my shame I think I often failed in this respect when I was
younger, perhaps getting too caught up in the selfish pursuit of my own
enjoyment. I'm hopefully better now.

One must also remember that temples and shrines are religious sites of
spiritual importance to most visitors, so that should also guide one's sense of courtesy.

Occasionally I'll purposefully partake in one of these experiences without the camera,
to give myself another chance at the deeper, intended experience, but so far it's always
been frustrating, seeing great shots in my mind and not getting a chance to make them real. I suppose the resulting photos are more real to me than the actual experience, which now that I put it that way,
sounds pretty pathetic.

Anyway, whatever, more pretty pics coming soon!