Next stop: Matsushima Bay
Leaving Sendai, it was a short trip north along Japan’s eastern coast to Matsushima Bay. The bay is dotted with wave-carved islets — some only large enough to support a single tree — and tourist boats cruising among them. Adjacent to the tour boat dock is a trail with a red footbridge leading to another tiny island, home to the Zuiganji Temple.
My big mistake
Next on our schedule, we were to put on traditional kimonos and have tea. Typically, I prefer to photograph others in their traditional dress, but — hey — I was game to go along. The dressing process was intensive with two people helping wrap me in layer after layer of heavy fabrics. Even the socks and shoes were included, which became my downfall. The shoes were wooden thongs, basically, and very slippery against the surface of the socks. We didn’t appear to have far to walk to the teahouse, and I made the decision to leave most of my camera gear at the kimono house and just take one camera with my 70-200 to make the trip easier.
The 70-200 would be perfect for some nice, tight shots of the tea service, I thought. Well, turns out tea was over very quickly and we were off (on foot) again to what ended up being one of the most beautiful locations I would see on this trip. And I was woefully unprepared with my gear choice.
Myself and fellow photographer Doug Stremel in our full kimono glory, and a shot of the accursed sandals that would become the bane of my existence (at least for a couple of hours).
We walked to the Entsuin Temple and its gardens which were at the peak of their autumn splendor. I was still shuffling along in my wooden thongs with my single telephoto lens as I took in this panoramic vision of fall color. What I would have given for even a normal lens, let alone a wide-angle! But, I soldiered on and convinced myself that it would be good for me to focus on tighter images rather than falling back on wide shots that try to include too much, as I am often prone to doing.
Still, the sandals were problematic. The socks were so slick in them that I couldn’t manage any incline at all. My feet would literally just slide back out of them. At a few places on the path I resorted to quietly slipping them off so that I could get up a small hill, then put them back on to resume my slow, shuffling pace.
When I got to the temple itself, I realized the only way I could get the shot I wanted was to take 5 or 6 shots at 70mm (the widest I had) and stitch them all together into a vertical panorama. I should have spent more time and taken more shots to make sure I had nailed it, but I was falling behind the group and was too focused on my footwear to think everything through properly. In the end, I was able to stitch together one pano that worked reasonably well, but oh how I wish I had had a wider lens with me to have really explored the possibilities.
The resulting pano is below — the temple with the path and all the fall leaves.
In hindsight, my big mistake was not in agreeing to participate in the kimono party (well… maybe I could have skipped the footwear) as much as it was deciding to leave most of my gear behind. Had I toughed it out and kept everything with me, I would have been so much more prepared for what awaited me. But, the temple in the golden forest wasn’t on the itinerary and I thought I would save myself some trouble. Lesson learned. Always be prepared. And wear sensible shoes.
