I spent a large part of my childhood in a small pineapple town called Wahiawa. On the main road up to where I lived, there’s a Buddhist Mission. I’ve passed this mission countless times and one day I just decided to go take some pictures. Here are a few shots of what’s outside. It was closed when I was there, so I couldn’t go inside…and I’m not sure I could have brought myself to do it anyway.
The first one is a bonsho (bell) and shoro (tower), donated to the shrine in 1990 by Mr. and Mrs. Tasuke Terao. I washed out most of the color, but not all of it. I don’t get too fancy with Photoshop because I really don’t know what I’m doing. A pure black and white picture seemed a bit TOO grey.
This next one is a statue of Shinran Shonin, Founder of Jodo Shinshu (1173-1262). This statue has been there since before I was born and it is a landmark I always look for on the way up the hill to our house. Again, not pure B&W, but close.
The last one is just the name of the place if you’re interested in looking for it. 1067 California Avenue. They also have a website. http://wahiawashinbuddhists.org/
I would have said that you should go all b/w on that first one and that there are ways of getting the kind of dynamic pop you’d need to make it work. BUt I really like the silver in the … whatever you call the bell ringing thingie there. Like the set a lot. Very serene.
Lovely images. And I, of course, love the Japanese angle.
Thanks. I took several close ups of the head of the priest, too, but none of them came out. Sam, I just have the basic Photoshop Elements 2.0 that came with my camera, so there’s not a lot of preset stuff that’s obvious for me to use. I just tweaked with Hue/Saturation until I got something I liked.