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Every time I visit Kencho-ji temple of Kamakura, I always manage to capture some unique images. Last time I was there I arrived just for the daily bronze bells singing, where monks are hitting temple bells in certain order, and the bells are afar from one another, so if you sit in the middle of the temple grounds the effect is incredible. After the bells go silent the monks gather inside one of the temple buildings for a prayer and sutra recitations. They drop a net around windows to seclude themselves from the surrounding world. I could have completely bypass those ropes in the photo but i thought it adds a lot to the mood of the image and send a very special message. To see other travel photos from Kamakura just search the blog for relative posts, there are many of them here.
My Youtube channel with free photoshop tutorials Photography workshops in Tokyo - click for more details. Hire a photographer in Tokyo Buy original Chinese and Japanese calligraphy art Check out my new portrait photography services in Tokyo website!
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I selected some photos from past year or so and created a slide show. Those are shots only from Tokyo. I will be creating a similar video that will include all type of artworks that I create (photography, calligraphy, photo manipulations). I am already planing a long timelapse video picturing Tokyo, but I cannot promise you when it will be ready. Timelapses are very time consuming and the end of the year will be rather busy. Watch in HD for best quality, enjoy! My Youtube channel with free photoshop tutorials Photography workshops in Tokyo - click for more details. Hire a photographer in Tokyo Buy original Chinese and Japanese calligraphy art Check out my new portrait photography services in Tokyo website! Hasedera is one of the Zen temples located above Kamakura, and you can see the whole bay and the beach from up there. Magical place, not as peaceful as Kenchou-ji but it does have a very soothing atmosphere. There are quite a few temple buildings there and the entire complex is wrapped around hills and rocks. One of those buildings is very special for me, it is a Buddhist sutra copying pavilion, devoted to sutra studies and meditations with mantras. Japanese and Chinese calligraphy studies are a well-known activities that prolong life in more effective way than tai-chi. Power of concentration, mind moving with the brush, balance and harmony - all of those that has healing powers. Watching calligraphy is also considered to be therapeutic.
My Youtube channel with free photoshop tutorials Photography workshops in Tokyo - click for more details. Hire a photographer in Tokyo Buy original Chinese and Japanese calligraphy art Check out my new portrait photography services in Tokyo website! Kenchou-ji Zen temple in Kmakura - hands down my favorite place in this small traditional Japanese city. The amazing atmosphere and aura that surrounds this peaceful place is simply therapeutic. If you are lucky you can sit down and listen to the chanting sound of massive temple bells, being struck in certain order by the monks, or witness the every-day prayers and ceremonies, or listen to the sutra recitation. The entire temple is an cove of peace and tranquility. I have visited this place several times and I can never get enough. If you enjoy travel photography or architecture photography, Kenchou-ji is a dream place to shoot. If you want to see other photos of mine taken in Kamakura, just type 'Kamakura" into the search box. Kamakura is relatively close to Tokyo, so if you are visiting the Metropolis you should definitely save one day for exploring the temples of Kamakura.
My Youtube channel with free photoshop tutorials Photography workshops in Tokyo - click for more details. Hire a photographer in Tokyo Buy original Chinese and Japanese calligraphy art Check out my new portrait photography services in Tokyo website! Kotokuin of Kamkura - possibly the most famous Buddhist temple where you can admire the 13 meters tall bronze statue of Amida Buddha. Kotokuin is not my favourite place to visit in Kamakura, (I prefer Kenchouji temple of Zen Buddhism, which has incredible atmosphere), but it is definitely one of those spots you should go to while traveling around Tokyo. The best time to go there is at 8 am during weekdays (this is the opening time), and you just may be the only person one on one with this peaceful being. Once more people arrive, the energy is disturbed and half the charm is gone. It took me a few tries to separate Kate from the crowd so I can capture her alone sitting on the stone base of the statue (yeah, I had no tripod, so the photshop magic disappearing act via masking would not work).
My Youtube channel with free photoshop tutorials Photography workshops in Tokyo - click for more details. Hire a photographer in Tokyo Buy original Chinese and Japanese calligraphy art Check out my new portrait photography services in Tokyo website! I went ahead and re-edited last year's photo of this beautiful Buddhist temple in Kamakura, and since my last version was black and white, this time I decided to present it in full colour. This is a quasi HDR image, created from one exposure. The photo was taken with an ND filter so this way I managed to remove all the who were people passing by.
I shot this lavishly decorated pagoda last year, during my visit to the Narita Temple. The temple grounds are massive, and there are thousands of places and vistas to photograph. It is like a candy store for a photographer. The temple is located near Tokyo, so it is easily accessible for anyone visiting the metropolis. Narita temple and its architecural details is one of the most amazing places I have seen in Japan.
When visiting a Japanese shrine or a temple, one can be easily overwhelmed by the lavishness of decorations, and insane attention to architectural details. Admiring Japanese traditional architecture could be compared to admiring Japanese calligraphy. First one admires the overal composition and the white space, then the harmony between the characters, then balance of strokes, and finally fine details of each line, dot and so on. Below you can see Japanese calligraphy in standard script carved in wood. It reads: 成田山 (Narita san), which is the name of the Busshist temple complex in Narita city near Tokyo. It was a gift from Akita prefecture, presented to the Narita temple back in Taisho Era (大正), year 9, i.e. 1921.
Sanmon (三門 or 山門 in Japanese) is a large, a few stories high temple gate. Sanmo is not only one of the key elements of the Zen Buddhist temple, but also one of the so called "seven temple halls" (七堂伽藍, Japanese: shichido garan), which are elements that form an ideal Zen Buddhism temple. There are many types of Buddhist temple gates in Japan, which are categorised into three ranks, being sorted by their height and size. The role of the sanmon in the Buddhist temple is to free all passers through from greed, hatred and foolishness. The pictured temple gate is located in Kencho-ji Rinzai Zen Buddhism temple in Kamakura. I also wrote another article about a small figurine of a meditating monk, which sits at the base of Kencho-ji temple gate, and you can read more about it here. Buy a print of this photo at my store on Fine Art America.
There is something ethereal and magical about the architecture of the wooden Japanese temples, especially the Zen temples, which are far less decorative than the Shinto shrines, although when I first saw the Kencho-ji (建長寺) temple in Kamakura, it had the same impact on me as the Nikko Tosho-gu (日光東照宮) temple complex. I knew I will be coming back there a few times. When I went back to Kamakura this year, there were very few people visiting this shrine, which made the whole area feel more intimate and secluded, and I wanted to capture this special mood on the camera. Photography is all about understanding the light, and the composition. The latter has much to do with perspective and the angle from which one takes a photo. Sometimes small adjustments can dramatically change the story one wants to tell. My aim was to create a photograph that would eliminate anything that was modern, including the tourists. When I was retouching this photo in Photoshop, I even removed the lightning conductor wires that ran along the sides of the roofs. I wanted to create an image that would make the passing of time irrelevant, Buy a print of this photo at my store on Fine Art America.
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