Mountain shrine against blue sky
This photo (click here), the top of a shrine against a blue sky, was taken at the peak of Mt. Norikura (乗鞍岳） in the early summer.Norikuradake is located right on the border between Nagano and Gifu prefectures, at the southernmost part of the Kita Alps (”north alps”). If I am not mistaken, the name comes from its saddle-like shape. From the surrounding highlands such as Kaidakogen (開田高原) further to the south, I think it has one of the prettiest profiles of all the mountains I have seen — especially at dusk if viewed from the old Nomugi-toge （野麦峠） pass road.
It is an easy peak to access. When I took this picture, I had left Yokohama in the early evening, arriving in Nagano around ten, where I borrowed a car, driving on through Matsumoto and arriving at the base approach around midnight. I remember that night — sleeping in the car and looking at the stars which were unbelievably bright at that altitude. From there, it was only about a two hour hike to peak. I took many photos that morning, but this is one of my favorites.
It was already “late” (around 8:00, and mountain photographers know what I mean), and the lighting was changing constantly because of the clouds being whipped across the summit by the wind. There were only a handful of hikers up there, so it was very peaceful and quiet. I knew all along that framing the roof of the shrine would make a good shot — it was just a matter of waiting for the sun to break through the clouds and throw light on the foreground, and to time it so there was some interesting cloud formation in the background.
Metering was not difficult. I used a hand-held incident reading in front of the shrine, and spot-metered the sky just to be sure.
The main point about this shot is the lens work. If you rolled over your cursor on the image, you will have seen that I shot it with my Hasselblad and a 50 mm wide-angle lens, hand-held. I read all the time that you “can’t” shoot medium format without a tripod, but I do often with my 50 mm lens. I love that lens — I think it is perfect for hand-held work. In any case, I had no choice. To get the composition I wanted, I needed to climb up the side of wall of loose rock that had been piled about shoulder high around the shrine to protect it from the elements. I could not have used a tripod even if I wanted. (I almost did not get to take this picture. When the kaminushi — 神主 or shrine priest — heard me scrambling around on the rock, he came out from inside the shrine and was mightily irate with me…). So hand-held it was, making maximum use of the wide angle lens’ depth of field — stopping it down to f22, which still gave me a shutter speed of 1/125 — more than enough for a hand held shot.
No filter — not even a polarizer. I was tempted use one, to really punch out the blue. But underexposing half a stop was enough. The Fuji Velvia 100 did its job. (My further thoughts on filter technique found here.)
I like the gorgeous blue contrasted against the sun-bleached silvery wood of the shrine. (If you look closely at the wood, you can see that the grain really stands out. This is from the “sand blasting” effect of the dirt and wind at that altitude.) It could be a mountain peak anywhere in the world, but of course with the shrine profile it says “Japan”. There is also a nice sense of altitude, I think, because of the hint of the highlands below.