Ikegami Honmonji (池上本門寺)

This morning we jumped on the bikes and took a ride to Ikegami Honmonji (池上本門寺). My goal was to make some good photos, but it was also a family outing of sorts. I dragged along the 5D Mark II and two lenses: 24mm-70mm f/2.8 and 70mm-200mm f/2.8.

Japanese temples are interesting places. In Tokyo they are an oasis of peace in the middle of a crazy, crowded, and sometimes insane city. We went early enough in the morning that there were still very few people there. It was a nice break from the crowded trains and tired people that I see on a daily basis.

I'm never sure about taking pictures in cemeteries. I've been here long enough that I no longer feel like a tourist. When you're a tourist you point your camera at anything and everything, and think nothing of it. Everything is new and foreign, and photo-worthy. And the locals just think "stupid tourist" and go about their lives. But once you're not a tourist anymore you start to worry about things like "is it OK to take pictures here?" And I assume that the locals, instead of thinking "stupid tourist" instead think "why is that guy taking pictures here?" I don't know, probably I worry too much. People tell me I'm too serious.

But Japanese cemeteries are fascinating places. First of all, people are cremated in Japan, not buried in the ground. So these are not grave markers per se. I'm not sure if tombstone is really the right word either.

If you look up 墓 (haka) in a Japanese-English dictionary, you get gravesite or tomb. But for some reason those words to me feel like there should be a dead body in there somewhere. The important thing is this is a memorial to those who have passed, and people come here to remember them. So in that sense it's not that different from a western graveyard. Actually I often think that cultural differences are in the details. It's common to see cups of sake placed on graves in Japan for example.



I have a hard time photographing wide open spaces. I don't know why, but I'm not good at it.  I get confused, and perhaps stop applying the fundamentals of framing and composition that I use when shooting a detail or closer subject.

Instead I flip into tourist mode, and just start recklessly snapping away.

This image came out OK, but most of my attempts at shooting this open courtyard look like vacation snaps. Oh well.

There is a 5 story pagoda at the temple site. Most of the buildings here were destroyed in the war, and rebuild afterwards. But the pagoda survived. It's over 400 years old. I couldn't fit it into the frame from without going all the way out to 24mm, and the lens distortion was terrible. So I tried a detail instead. I think it works well:

The temple is on a hill, and there's an observation tower that gets you ever higher. It's interesting to see crowded Tokyo ugliness on one side, and then turn 180 degrees and see Japanese cultural beauty on the other side. These two photos were taken 35 seconds apart, from the exact same location:

On top of the observation tower, I sat down and changed lenses. I wasn't getting very many good shots with the 24-70, and I figured that rather than accepting responsibility for my lack of creative vision, I would just blame the lens.

So I slapped on the 70-200 and decided to get closer to everything on the walk back to the bikes. I'd seen several nice flowers blooming on the walk up, and you can't go wrong with flowers and a long lens. It's cheating, in a sense.

If there's one thing all cities have in common, it's pigeons. As birds go they are on the less majestic side, but they seem to be evolutionarily perfect for city life. I was watching these pigeons and got the idea to startle them and then try to catch them taking off. So I set the camera to ISO 500 and f/2.8 on Av, which gave me a shutter speed of 1/2000. Then I composed the frame, stamped my foot, and the grabbed the shot just as the bird took off.

I was a little slow on the shutter, and the bird has almost flown out of the frame. But still I think it's a cool photo. Would be cooler with an eagle, or a whooping crane though...

I've missed several shots messing around trying to get things perfect. A few minutes before I took this photo, there was a much more interesting photo available. An old woman was bowing in front of the statue, and a man was walking down the path toward her.

It was almost perfect, but the trees were not framing the statue like I wanted. I moved a little bit to the side to fix that, and then some guy walked in front of me. As I was waiting for him to get out of my frame, the image fell apart. The lady finished bowing and wandered off, and the man exited stage left. So this is the photo I got instead. But imagine the other one on your mind's eye.

All in all, it was a satisfying visit.  My daughter chased pigeons, my son put rocks in his pockets, and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Read more about Ikegami Honmonji at Wikipedia or at the official English site. 池上本門寺の日本語のサイトはこちら.

All images © 2010 by Jason Weddington.  Contact me at the_wandering_eye [at] yahoo [dot] com for usage or licensing requests.