One of these days it will end up as a better print and mount. Instead it sits behind glass in the best frame I could offer at the time. If I can’t afford a space to myself, I might as well decorate my brother’s. This image was taken on my last trip to Japan. My memories of visiting the 5000 Torii Gates of the Fushimi Inari Shrine are fond and the pictures seemingly countless.
Not all of the venues I have visited with my students this term have sparked such a photographic documentation. I have found that given my focus of running the course, and some how always making sure I haven’t lost someone (physically or in thought) has significantly cut down on my own personal recording of the location. Other means of absorbing the spaces have appeared from a standpoint of research and comparison. But much to the disappointment of hindsight, my shutter has been less active. That, and there was often some architecture student standing right in one of my compositions. Nothing against scalies, as I have mentioned not too long ago. A familiar scalie alters the depth of a photo. Strangers are more telling.
In a not surprising twist, and perhaps given how spread out we all instantly became, the return to the 4 kilometer hilly hike instantly became a joy to wonder and a spark for photos. Below, not the best of my shots from that day, but one that might capture my slant of mood: dramatic light effects and amplified atmospheres. Also, and why it now makes the pages; having seen the previous photo repeatedly on Chip’s wall: it is the same location. This time I stood slightly lower and a bit more central. Already filled with the given shots of record from 2005: the shutter is clearly shorter to match the eye that is one for more exaggeration and experimentation.
