Continuing with the Seifuso Villa: Between the Tea House and the Garden

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 125 —
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Behind the Seifuso Villa

清風荘 · Kyoto, Japan
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Dipping my pen again into the very deep well that was November's visit to the Seifuso Villa (清風荘) in Kyoto, today's post has a bit more from
early on in the visit first seen in
“Entrance Foyer to the Seifuso Villa in Kyoto”.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/4, ISO 2200 —
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Formal Gate

this gate, seen from afar
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I vacillate on whether the photo above is of interest. I've deleted it (and then undeleted it) several times.

I showed the garden's formal tea house in “Approaching the Tea House at
Kyoto’s Seifuso Villa”. Near it are a few small buildings loosely connected with shared outside passageways....
one building being a prep room for the staff, another a waiting room for guests, and finally a lesser-class tea room...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Support Buildings




Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/1.4, ISO 160 —
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Entrance to the Waiting Room





Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 —
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Simplicity Incarnate

the waiting room






Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/8, ISO 1400 —
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Artsy Bamboo

on the path to the tea house
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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/100 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Wash Basin

near the tea house

Next to the waiting room was a tea house of lesser status. The next two
photos of our host, Will Baber (a professor at Kyoto University's business
school), makes for an interesting comparison of widely-differing perspective
effects possible with a wide-angle lens. In the first photo he looks tiny,
and in the second positively ginormous. He's in the same room in both shots...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/4, ISO 4500 —
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Tiny Will




Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/30 sec, f/4, ISO 6400 —
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Ginormous Will

The square on the floor in front of Will's feet above make it clear that
this is a tea room. That bit of tatami mat can be removed, revealing place
were a pot of tea can be heated over charcoal (the kind of charcoal,
actually, being put to alternative uses as seen here).

Also, compare the ceiling here with that of the waiting room above...
the ceiling on the right side of this room (the side for the guest) is of a
much higher status than the waiting-room ceiling, which itself is of a
higher status than the host-side (left side) of this room . I wish I'd
taken a photo of the ceiling in the staff/prep room... I'm sure it would
have been of an appropriately-lower class still.

Here's another shot of the same room from the same location with the same lens, but with a composition
that looks completely normal this time (no mini/huge effects... just Damien peeking in)...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/4, ISO 2500 —
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Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/4, ISO 1000 —
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Kitchenette Shelves

in the staff's prep building





Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 —
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Path to the Garden





Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/125 sec, f/4, ISO 100 —
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Showing us the Main Garden




Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 720 —
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Heading In




Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 640 —
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Will Baber and our Guide

our gracious host and our guide

(the guide, walking away in the background, has been amateurishly cloned out)

The photo above originally had someone walking away in the background,
and I was going to post it here like that, but on a lark I tried painting
out the whole guy roughly with Lightroom 5's new Spot Healing Brush. I had absolutely no expectation that the result would be anything but laughable,
but to my surprise it was actually pretty good for the 10 seconds of work
that I put into it... good enough to spend a bit more time tweaking it. It
won't pass even the most basic inspection, but at first glance it's good
enough.

To be continued...