Sunday 7 September 2014

A Few More

These ones are a bit of a hodgepodge, but they were all taken within a week of each other.


This is a sculpture set outside the imperial palace in Tokyo.  The part of the palace that is opened to the public during specific holidays (toff birthdays and whatnot) is exceptionally boring.  It's the most dull plaza I've ever seen, quite deliberately so by the looks of things.  Sometimes designers completely misunderstand the space within which they work and you end up with things like the gherkin (something I hate and love depending on any arbitrary measure, such as which way the wind is blowing).  The designers of this place just seem to have given up trying to design anything at all, instead focussing on the gardens hidden behind vast walls and the building itself.

Fuck the plebs.


These lanterns were quite common but difficult to place in their surroundings due to their style.  I can't tell whether these are a Japanese interpretation of a long-past European style, an original Japanese creation or something else entirely.  I feel like they belong in an old German town or something.


Anyway I took a couple of pictures to show both the shape and the colour - both were rather interesting when place within the old grounds of the palace.  Although, to be fair, if you walked into the place without knowing it was a centuries old place it's entirely possible to mistake it for something much newer; and much more European.


The colours in this picture are all messed up.  The pink of the flower is as they were (at least on my non colour controlled screen) but the background green is luminous - decidedly unlike the leaves of the various lilies around Japan.


A man on a horse.  It's either a very important man, or a very important horse.  The outside shot is that it is, in face, a very important hat.


The shape of water is always fascinating when photographed.  I haven't the time or patience to take pictures of droplets, so this will have to do.  Water on a lily (I think it's actually lotus) leaf.

This one was actually taken outside Himeji castle, pictures of which follow.  It had an absolutely magnificent tea house overlooking the castle, along with a fantastic pong replete with waterfalls and enormous fish.  A perfect example of the Japanese style in such things, and a great thing to try and replicate should you so wish (and should you have the space in your own garden).



A very, very long time ago, I wrote a couple of blog posts showing pictures very similar to these.  It's interesting to come back and take another look at something that I saw four, five or six years ago.


I doubt these pictures show much in the way of my improvement when taking photographs.  There are only a finite number of vantage points by which you can view the castle, so I assume the pictures from before almost perfectly match up with these.  I wouldn't be surprised if they were in black and white too.

Anyway, that was the journey to Himeji and the surrounding gardens (and one or two other places I'm sure).  I think next up might be Kyoto, but I'll have to trawl the archives to find out.

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