The Electroblog
See no evil
Posted by Damon Schreiber (Toronto, Canada) on 19 October 2006 in Abstract & Conceptual and Portfolio.
At Yasaka Koshindo Temple in Kyoto. The hanging monkeys help ward off evil. read more here.
DeWane Stone from Atlanta, United States
Interesting. Thanks for sharing this. The Kyoto Monkeys are kind of mesmerizing.
19 Oct 2006 9:09am
Peggy Picot from Paris, France
Really interesting! you're some kind of an anthropologist withe thses pictures... thanks!
19 Oct 2006 7:06pm
Kody Whiteaker from Pullman, United States
Thanks for reading...lol. I would rather have that than a bunch of compliments....i don't know maybe Im just not used to them.
Anyway theres alot of information in this picture, it almost confuses the veiwer andand could possibly misdirect their focus. The right side has a tiny part of a doorway in it, that is distracting from the frame.....its right in limbo of being too much in the picture or not enough. If you want i in, mabe make it the dominant right third of your picture. Personally though, I think you would e better cutting it out and putting the two monkeys in the two side thirds. Sometimes looking straight on at a picture works well, and I believe this is one of those times. I think by focusing on those two monkeys would have been a great focus point(s). Lower yourself just a tiny bit to get their whole bodies and a little of what their standing on, cut out the doorframe and i think youll have an even better image
19 Oct 2006 10:59pm
H.O from Victoria, Canada
"mizaru" "iwazaru" "kikazaru" :-)
nice image !
Thank you for your comment in my photoblog.
20 Oct 2006 2:17am
Shuva Brata Deb from Hyderabad, India
Where is the 3rd monkey. The colors are good. I dont know what I would have done, probably put a person out there to be the 3rd monkey.
20 Oct 2006 3:02am
Damon Schreiber from Toronto, Canada
Thank you everyone for your kind comments and helpful critiques. I appreciate them all.
I'd like to respond to some of the ideas by saying that I knew that this doesn't have ideal composition. I did crop it somewhat from the original, to try to improve it, but there remains an unbalanced feeling. Knowing that, I classified it as abstract, and concentrated more on the colours and textures which I think have merit by themselves.
An truth of photography that we all experience, I'm sure, is that what is just outside the frame is not visible to those who can only view what the photographer presents in the image. In this case, there is a third monkey [kikazaru], but due to the arrangement of the temple, it's not easy to get a clear straight-on view of all three. There is a bell rope and incense holder (bottom-left in my photo) in the middle, and stairs in front. To get a clearer view, I would have to have climbed the stairs, which probably isn't allowed, and then I'd probably have been too close to capture everything. So I worked with what I found... Here is a picture that shows the whole scene as you see it when you visit the temple.
It's intriguing to think about the photo that could have been, though. And the next time I find myself at this temple in Kyoto, which will undoubtedly be years from now, I'll see how I can improve it. Meanwhile, maybe some of the Am3 folks who are in Japan like Aleksander or Duncan can take a stab.
20 Oct 2006 12:48pm
Canon PowerShot G3
1/50 second
F/4.0
29 mm