Photographs taken during a short walk in Japan.
It’s been a few years since shrines had festivals with crowds, due to the pandemic. Today, I went to a festival in Ueno, Tokyo.
I had my camera with a prime lens and set it to a color mode, and didn’t worry about changing them. I call it restrictive choice. I’m having nice comments and replies about it with GE McKerrihan, a truly wonderful photographer and writer. As many already know, it frees one from too many choices (lens and color/BW mode variations, etc) and allows concentrating on image making.
Mikoshi is the focal point of festivals. The shrine’s god, usually sits inside the shrine, moves to this mobile vehicle during the festival. It is carried on shoulders around the blocks to connect to people. But this year it was carried on a wheeled platform to avoid too much contact of the carriers.
A flag says “please keep social distance”, a pandemic slogan. Which is impossible today.
Each shrine has unique uniform, “hanten”. Carriers must wear them. I have mine of the local shrine, too.
Food is delicious with festival sounds, crowd noise, and outdoor air. I really hope we can have festivals like this this year. The pandemic took away so many opportunities.
