Looking up in Toranomon

Lunch break photo walks are hard; almost nothing looks good with the midday sun directly overhead. I started doing these because I think I need more time behind the camera and finding a good photo in a limited amount of time in difficult lighting conditions with only one lens to choose from can be good practice.

(I bring only a single prime lens for my week-day practice shoots. Usually it's the EF 24mm f/2.8 because that lens is small and light and fits in my bag nicely, but today I brought my EF 35mm f/1.4L)

But I've already walked all over Akasaka, and taken pretty much every photo that can be taken within walking distance from my building on a one hour lunch break. The images are starting to blur together and I'm beginning to hate myself for taking so many pictures of flowers.

So I decided to hop a train and go somewhere close and within the range of my commuter pass. I took the Ginza line to Toranomon. I never go to Toranomon these days, but it sounds cool so I decided to give it a try.

I wandered off the main drag and into the side streets. The stories of a city are told in the side streets. And even in the middle of the day, side streets are dark - hiding in the shadows of tall buildings. If there's a cool photo to be found in the middle of the day, you can bet that its hiding down a side street.

But this time I really couldn't find anything interesting.  And then I looked up.  Apparently, some of the most interesting views in Toranomon are straight up.  There are all kinds of options for playing with geometric shapes and lines when you have tall buildings, and a cloudless sky.  Cool.

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

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.