Ikegami Oeshiki – Chanting Monks
A lot of the participants in the annual giant Oeshiki festival held at Tokyo’s Ikegami district were monks, and obviously they take the death memorial ceremony of their great sage very seriously. Religious ceremonies make for very interesting photography, and this is one of the most photogenic buddhist ceremonies in Japan. You can see all posts I’ve done about this kind of ceremony by clicking the tag お会式. Shooting these scenes I had to crank up the camera ISO settings and keep a steady hand. It is hard to get good color settings with this kind of light, but I prefer these reddish tones over the artificial colors the camera would prefer, since most light sources have completely different color profiles. Hope you like these though!
Tokyobling's Blog 
I love the last picture of this set. The overall colour, composition and framing really takes you into this whole other world.
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Thank you Coal! (^-^)
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What level ISO – 1600? Personally I like the color tone of all your images [most in the evening]. the last image of this post is very expressive. Also, I smiled when I noticed the Monk with his camera and wrist watch …recording time?
Thanks.
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“I smiled when I noticed the Monk with his camera and wrist watch”
So did I…though I think my favorite in the set is the third from the last (ikegami_oeshiki_2180.jpg).
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Thank you! I have so many photos of chanting monks from this event. One of those photo cliches that you never tire of! The religious equivalent of people walking past stock market info screens or bands against brick walls… (^-^)
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Thank you! I think the setting for these were ISO 2000, f2.0, 1/250. I had to use such a fast shutter because it’s a fairly long lens at 135mm and with only f2.0 it doesn’t leave any room for error. In hindsight I could have gone down to to 1/200 or something, but then I would have lost 5-10% more photos from motion blur, at least. In Japan many monks have watches, don’t know why though. He is an official photographer of the temple where this festival is hosted.
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Reblogged this on Illuminata and commented:
This photographer’s blog is worth following. Always culturally interesting
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Thanks for the shots, they sure look serious, but in a good way or how shpuld I say it.. 😀
I noticed the monk with the camera too, but after him on the next pic,the guys in those shoes are something as well, along with the clothing 🙂
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Thank you Timi! (^-^)
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