Photo: Kiyomizu-dera Buddhist Temple Gate (Niōmon)

In this post, I want to share with you a photo of a Buddhist temple gate I took at Kiyomizudera, Kyoto, Japan. This gate called Kiyomizu-dera Buddhist Temple Gate (Niōmon, 仁王門, lit. Niō gate) is immediately visible after you pass through Matsubara-dori alley.

It’s a beautiful large orange gate, accompanied by the Kiyomizu-dera Temple West Gate and a beautiful pagoda of the Kiyomizu triple-tower temple (清水寺 三重塔). The pagoda was first built in 847 and rebuilt in 1632 and 1987. It’s 31m height.

In the photo, you can see part of the Kiomizu triple-tower temple, the Niōmon Buddhist Temple gate and the Kiyomizu-dera Temple West Gate altogether.

Nio-mon gate of Kiyomizu-dera temple, Kyoto, Japan.

Looks Completely Different in Winter

I arrived in Kyoto on February 18, 2019. It was Monday morning and I reached the place at 7:20 am in the morning. The place looked completely different as I remember it in Spring during the cherry blossom time period.

You can see the tree on the left side. This is a Japanese apricot tree (“ume”, 梅) and it has beautiful pink blossoms in Springtime. Now take a look at this image that I’ve taken when the cherry blossom is in full bloom. What a difference, right?

There was something about the place at that time. It was the end of the winter, in February. It was still cold (you can see that the girl on the left is wearing worm clothes). The place has a deep atmosphere. It wasn’t vibrant and happy as in April with the cherry blossoms, but there was almost no tourists around and the staying felt more authentic. It didn’t feel like an outdoor museum-like in Spring, and I had a more personal connection with the place.

There is a big difference when coming to a place like this when it’s empty of people than coming during the high season where it’s packed with people, both locals, and tourists.  This is why I visit some places several times, not just in the peak season when everybody is rushing seeing those top-attraction places in Kyoto, or anywhere else in Japan.

The entrance to that area is beautiful. There is something about coming from below and seeing that beauty lying up there on the mountainside. The orange colors of the gate inject vibrancy and life into the mysty morning weather.

Photography Notes

I didn’t do a lot with this photo.  It looked powerful straight out of the camera. I added a bit of vignette effect and wrapped it up. I captured the photo using my OnePlus 6 Android phone which served me well for these type of shots. So, one of the big advantages of this phone is that it captured wide pictures but sometimes due to the lack of height, I need to carefully frame the picture to not let some important areas get out of the frame.

Additionally, I like to use the panorama camera capture function when I need more horizontal space. This is something that I think every photographer should consider, it’s equally important to other framing techniques because if you need that extra wide-angle space and you can’t get it with your lens, you can use the panorama feature to achieve that.

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