Week 17.2: Kyoto in Colour

I shot a roll of colour film during my recent trip to Japan. The developed negatives and scans recently came back from the lab, PCP photo (I indulged myself by having them scan the negatives). They really did an excellent job, so I am sharing them here.

Every time I put a colour film in my camera I think of that black-and-white film from Wim Wenders where for a few minutes, everything turns into colour. In my case, I  had planned this switch to colour meticulously: the first colour photograph I took was of the famous Golden Pavilion in Kyoto, which is certainly one of the most famous sites in town, if not in Japan,  there were certainly a lot of people there. I was amazed at how wonderful the colours look on this scan (it’s Portra 400), much better than the digital photographs that I took the last time I was there in 2003.

The Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji)

My second photograph is from the famous rock  garden at Ryōan-ji

Ryoan-ji

My third photograph is a street in Kyoto at night:

In Kyoto at night.

The next two are from the Ginkaku-ji, which is my favourite temple in Kyoto:

 

And the last few are from various temples around Kyoto:

 

 

 

 

I was quite happy with how these photographs turned out.  I laughed remembering how shooting film is supposed to be a ‘zen’ experience. Well, the shooting actual zen gardens on film is even more zen :-).  Probably I am even ready to accept that subjects like these might be better in colour, that is certainly my conclusion (I didn’t like the pictures I took of the gardens in Tri-X as much).

Next post, back in Paris again! Technical details: all  images are from an M6 with a 50mm summicron-M v4 on Portra-400.