Yakumo's World
Kyoto Modern (4), Solitude
Posted by GJC (Kyoto (京都), Japan) on 13 September 2008 in People & Portrait.
This is the last (for now) of my "modern" shots. I want to thank everyone who wrote such interesting comments on this series, and I enjoyed reading your comments as much as taking the photos. Your comments helped me to understand my own photography a little better.
And here's what I've been thinking:
As I wrote several days ago in response to a comment, I often feel that I do not present an entirely "accurate" portrait of Kyoto. I am, after all, drawn to the old and much of Kyoto is not. It is telephone wires and flourescent lights, transformers and cellphone towers, urban blight and tract housing. And I just don't enjoy photographing those things, though I genuinely admire the skill and liveliness with which others do -- for superb examples see the ultra-urban photography of Hugo Poon in Hong Kong and of Ruben Frosali in Tokyo. Thus, I certainly don't think that modern Kyoto life is beneath artistic notice. All those things I consciously cut out of my photos nevertheless have lots to say. (In fact, that’s why I cut them out, so that their voices don’t intrude.) It's just that they don't really speak to me.
In the end, I console myself that Yakumo's World is not a documentary of Kyoto. It's simply an expression of my own vision, of the things that feed my passions: the fields and the old houses that watch over them, the great temples where countless generations have worshipped in the play of light and shadow, the delicate maples as they hover in hushed communion with the moss -- in short all the quiet places that invite peace and whisper beauty. And, after all, these places and scenes do exist; they are not a fiction of my lens. It is an unending delight and privilege, therefore, to be living amidst them, and to share them with you here.
Nikon D300
1/100 second
F/5.0
ISO 200
120 mm (35mm equiv.)