May 11, 2012

⎨Portland Japanese Garden⎬

I'd missed a free visit to the Japanese Garden in mid April because I couldn't walk the mile up the hill to the garden with my sprained ankle, so when my parents were in town, I suggested we check it out. It was a cloudy day, and it even rained a couple of minutes after I had to reload my film (phew), so there weren't too many people around. We took our time walking around, stopping to photograph little details, and talked about moss and its importance in Japanese garden design with the pavilion attendant. I also confessed my desire to take a ceramics class and found out that my mother had traveled to central France to take a clay workshop when she was young. My mother who never has time to do anything relaxing or fun! 

--1652 --1653--1663
--1661
--1662
--1666
Canon 1N // Portra 160

I left the garden wanting to go to Japan even more desperately than before, and with a renewed yearning to learn pottery. After I got my film back, I was also ready to exchange all the film in my fridge for some more Portra 160. 

I'm in the process of changing the size of the photos on this blog, so please excuse the mess. I absolutely hated the smaller photo size, and even 700 wasn't wide enough for my taste. It seems that 800 is where it's at, although I don't like that the text body is so wide, so I'll have to adjust that. I also revamped part of my portfolio

5 comments:

  1. lovely photos. i'm getting portra 160 next, i've been using different types of film to see how it captures different scenes and i haven't shot this film in a while and all of the photos from in poping in a few blogs i read, including yours, has me thinking about it every time i load a roll.

    I like the wider photos in your blog and find the having the same width text looks well because it's uniform.

    is the last photo a reflection? it has a strange cuality to it, the blur and repetition.

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    1. Thank you! I've only shot it once but I absolutely loved its tones. It was perfect for the Japanese garden.

      Good to know. It might take me a little getting used to how wide the text is, but I'm happy that it doesn't hurt your eyes.

      It's not a reflection, it's only a tree with incredibly tangled branches and a lot of bokeh.

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  2. I love zen & Japanese minimalism. These photos are so beautiful, they in a way remind me of your home because of your lovely tea set & the subtle Japanese design aspects, as well as the earthy feel. I do love the wide look & agree with ziazia about the wide text looking good too! :)

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    1. Well, that's nice to hear! The tea set does help trick my mind into believing we're really in Japan. I sometimes have to force myself to use it even though I love it so much.

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  3. i dream of japan, too. i want to visit the chinese gardens (or, both, preferably) when i'm in portland—i hear there's a tea house and that it will be prime peony season? sounds like heaven.

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