 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Great photos at:
Great gift idea
Click here to get them!
Shop easy with
Would you like to link to
this website? Please use
one of the buttons below.
Thank you!
|
Webdesign & contents
by ClaireWorks.
Copyright 2000-2001
Beverly Claire L. Fangonon.
All rights reserved.
All graphics & photographs
by ClaireWorks,
unless otherwise indicated.
|
|
|
|
Capturing the Charm of Nagoya
05 June 2001
|
|
|
Imagine rolling hills, green grass that seems to go on for miles, an aggregation of lovely cherry trees, hidden walking trails, well-placed monuments and a Shinto shrine, and a beautiful pagoda overlooking it all. Right in the middle of Nagoya, Japan's fourth largest city.
|
|
|
Welcome to Heiwa Koen, or Peace Park. Located 15 minutes on foot north of Motoyama station on the Higashiyama subway line, Heiwa Koen is nicknamed "tokai no oashisu" or The City's Oasis. And oasis it is indeed. Your first glimpse of the huge park would be two adjacent smaller parks, one when, on a sunny weekend, is filled with picturesque father-sons playing catch, and elderly couples walking their dog; the other park is filled with trees, cherry trees that bloom radiantly early Spring. There is a small lake in the middle, and benches all around. Walk up further and you see a long flight of stairs. Up, up, and you are now facing a lovely pagoda. You can now stretch your arms and feel how it is to be on top of the whole sparkling scenery. Go down to the other side, and you can have a taste of wilderness through the hidden trails connecting Heiwa Park to the neighboring Higashiyama Koen.
|
|
|
Wait, I'm beginning to sound like a travel guide. But really, Heiwa Koen is the most beautiful place in Nagoya. I used to live nearby, and would go there twice or three times a week, for long peaceful walks. It was perfect for picnicking, or just reading a book on a warm but breezy day. Except for the family park that greets you at the entrance, all the other spots are quiet as quiet as you please. Ocassionally there's a lone bugle player or drum-beater practicing, but otherwise all you can hear are the twittering birds and the blowing breeze.
|
|
|
Here's just one sample of the interesting monuments in the park.
|
|
A tower at Heiwa Koen.
|
|
|
The photo you see above is one of my more creative shots. It actually won in a photography contest sponsored by the Nagoya Convention and Visitors Bureau, and I'm happy about winning because I didn't think I would win. Duh. I mean, Japan is shutter-bug land, and maybe 2 out of 10 people are amateur photographers, so how could I compete with all them photography addicts who have money to spare and years of experience? But I ended up a finalist, and would have gotten the bigger prize if only I wrote a better caption. It was not merely a photo contest, you see. It was a photo and caption contest. And I wrote the world's most boring caption.
|
|
|
So I am here blabbering about the contest, and you are there staring at the photo and wondering, what's that rainbow thing overlapping the tower? That was the first thing my big sister asked when I showed her the photograph, so you're probably asking the same question, too.
|
|
|
No, it's not a computer graphics trick. It's a simple camera trick called multiple exposure. Ordinarily, when you take a photo, the frame advances for every shot you take. But multiple exposure allows you to freeze the frame and pile up several shots on it. These shots appear semi-transparent, with the last shot serving as the "background".
|
|
|
The tower at Heiwa Koen is actually topped by a prism, that diamond-shaped thing you see at the tip. When you go inside the opening at the bottom of the tower and look up, you'll see a rainbow emanating from the prism. On cloudy days it's just a small rainbow, but a bright sunny day gives you a rainbow covering up to half the inside of the tower. So what I did was to overlap a shot of this inner rainbow with a shot of the tower seen on the outside.
|
|
|
First I put the multiple exposure setting to 2 (for two shots). I then underexposed it by -1.0 stop, and then using my zoom lens at 105 mm took the shot of the rainbow inside the tower. Next, I changed the lens to the standard one at 50 mm, underexposed the shot also by -1.0 stop, and took the photo of the tower. The multiple exposure setting put the first shot on top of the second. It's a simple camera trick available on single-len reflex (SLR) cameras. The tough part is estimating the optimum amount of exposure compensation depending on the brightness of the scene.
|
|
|
|
|
So that's how I took the photo. The title I stuck to it was "Heiwa Kou Niji" or Mini Rainbow of Peace, and the caption I cooked up went "Tokai no oashisu ni aru, rippana tou no ue ni, sono naka kara miru koto ga dekiru niji o kasanete mimashita", which I don't wish to translate into English because it will sound even more awful than it already is in Japanese. Not that the grammar is wrong or anything, it just sounds so lame, you see.
|
|
|
Oops, I can see you knitting your eyebrows. Okay, here's the translation: "On top of the fine tower standing in the middle of the city's oasis, I overlapped the rainbow that can be seen from inside it". Or something to that effect.
|
|
|
Go ahead and laugh. I must admit, it's a lousy excuse for a caption. Come to think of it, I've always been lousy at writing photo captions, whether in English or Filipino or Japanese.
|
|
|
At any rate, before I launch into a discussion of all the lousy captions I have written in my lifetime, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Nagoya Convention and Visitors Bureau for sponsoring the contest and the prize money that went along with it. I am also thankful for the color leaflet they published and distributed throughout the city that contained all the winning as well as qualifying photographs, where it was made obvious that I was the youngest of them all (23 years old; the top three were 67, 75 and 41 years old; the rest of the finalists were 50, 48, 72 and 56 years old; the qualifiers ranged from 28 to 79 years old). And finally, I wish to dedicate the photo to Andy Boone, for all the encouragement he has given me when I started photography as a hobby.
|
|
|
Now if you'll excuse me, there's another tower out there that I need to capture on film.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
