NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO64)
Seems like I’m running out of song titles for my blog post but this Van Morrison song fits best. These temples are really peaceful and quiet.
Japan complains about over tourism and I get it. There are a lot of visitors from foreign countries compared to a couple of years ago. Tourists mostly concentrate on the hot spots which are mainly three cities: Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. Tokyo and Osaka are big cities so outside of top sightseeing spots you won’t see many tourists. Kyoto is different, it’s much smaller and because of that you see tourists everywhere. On the hot spots it can get uncomfortable busy. I wrote about that in my blog post: rush hour in Kyoto.
But it doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy peace in the temples. You just need to choose your temple wisely and visit at the right time of the day.
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/5.6, 1/50 sec, ISO400)
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/2, 1/50 sec, ISO250)
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/2, 1/125 sec, ISO64)
There were other people visiting the temple at the same time as you can see in my picture below but it was far from busy. And best of all the visitors behave well which means that they talked little and soft. Those temples calm you down and like in other quiet places you automatically also try produce less noise. I usually put my Nikon Z8 in silent even though the fake shutter sound that I selected is already very quiet and most likely only audible for me or someone standing very close to me.
This temple also had a very nice idea to raise money for maintenance and renovation. For 500 JPY (about 3 Euros) you can purchase a wooden shingle and write your wishes on it. My wife bought a couple of them and wrote wishes for us and for our closest friends. Next time I visit I know that our wishes are written somewhere on the roof of the temple.
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/2, 1/1000 sec, ISO64)
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/2, 1/50 sec, ISO800)
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/50 sec, ISO80)
We spent about one hour inside the temple. I just checked the EXIF data on my images because honestly I couldn’t tell. As soon as I enter I seem to forget about time and space. I just try to take it all an and of course take some pictures.
This is already the blog post number three featuring our visit of the Nanzen-ji temple but we are not done yet. There is a garden on the temple grounds that we still have to visit. More about it in another blog post.
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO450)