Firewalk!!

[Norm in Fujino]

Most visitors to Japan learn the conventional fact that Japan has two major religions, Shinto and Buddhism. In fact, though, this statement oversimplifies a much more complicated situation. One of the most important "other" religious traditions is known as Shugendou, a Way adopting elements from both Buddhism and kami-centered beliefs (today generally known as Shinto), but which differs from both in several important details. On May 3, I took a group of students to a Shingon Buddhist temple where a group of shugenja were performing a public firewalk ritual, and I was able to photograph the entire thing. Unfortunately, the crowds made it impossible to get optimum positions for the shots, and I got blurry pieces of hats and heads in lots of shots, but you'll get the idea. Two of my students did the walk, as did I (I even got burned a bit, which probably indicates the cloudy state of my soul :( )

Here are just a few photos; the rest are on my

Photobucket site (http://s27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/Peregrinor/Firewalk/?start=all), and I've included brief, explanatory captions there; unfortuanately, the photos were uploaded in reverse order so you have to go the end and work backwards to keep them in proper chronological order (if you're interested, click on the above link to go to the proper beginning page; start from the last photo on the page and work backwards from there. I've numbered the comments so it shouldn't be hard to follow)

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/Peregrinor/Firewalk/P5037077_aw1.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/Peregrinor/Firewalk/P5037116w1.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/Peregrinor/Firewalk/P5037120w1.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/Peregrinor/Firewalk/P5037158w1.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/Peregrinor/Firewalk/P5037201P1w1.jpg

Sorry no time to provide exif info on these. Basically, all were with the Olympus E-300 and DZ 14-54 and 50-200 lenses. ISO was mostly 200, some 100. I used the higher ISO just to give me more shutter speed to compensate a bit for the hand-held long lens (35mm equivalent 400mm).

The sunlight was excellent, by the way, ironically making it really, really bad photographically speaking :mad: . Which is to say, brilliant light directly overhead (mid-day), casting the worst kind of high-contrast shadows on faces, and without any ability to effectively compensate (I suppose I could have taken out the FL-50 flash, but I would've missed an awful lot of shots given the recharge time required).

[Prospero]

Interesting and beautiful pictures, Norman. It really looks like an interesting ritual. I remember that some guru once tried to organise a similar thing for freshmen at a university here in the Netherlands, but everyone got burned. I guess the average state of mind here in the Netherlands must be a lot worse than in Japan ;).

I really like the effect of the heat on the final picture. Also, there were some really nice colourful shots in the Imagebucket. Keep posting, I really like your pictures; they show a culture so entirely different from what I am used to here.

[Norm in Fujino]

Interesting and beautiful pictures, Norman. It really looks like an interesting ritual. I remember that some guru once tried to organise a similar thing for freshmen at a university here in the Netherlands, but everyone got burned. I guess the average state of mind here in the Netherlands must be a lot worse than in Japan ;).

It really takes someone knowledgeable to get set up the burn properly, and then smooth out the coals to prevent getting burnt. I stepped on one hot coal toward the end and got a slight burn only, but I understand why those first priests were running across. It was much hotter then!

I really like the effect of the heat on the final picture. Also, there were some really nice colourful shots in the Imagebucket. Keep posting, I really like your pictures; they show a culture so entirely different from what I am used to here.

Thanks much. The distortion in that one picture really emphasize the heat, doesn't it.

[Blob]

I thought I was looking at pre-release photos from National Geographic. The colors are brilliant and the compositions are captivating. Great job Norm.

Did you do a lot of post-processing?

Bob

[Norm in Fujino]

Thanks, Blob. I shoot in RAW, so a certain degree of PP is inevitable.
I enjoy the darkroom work as part of the "creative process," so I feel kind of funny when a rare shot comes from the camera and I think there's nothing more to be done to it.
I did spend a bit of time on this series (actually not enough time on some of them), simply due to the bad lighting (excessive contrast, especially on faces) and oversaturation in some of them (too late I discovered that the PL filter tends to cause oversaturation of reds, so some of the azaleas were almost fluorescent).

best wishes

[Camille]

Really gorgeous color and such wonderful expressions! Take us on some more field trips like that. Amazing how just those few pictures tell so complete a story.
I'm on my way to photobucket site to see the rest.
Camile

[George Riehm]

As always.... well done. Too bad I'm only in Japan a week at a time, and it's almost always business or going out with the local guys (both of which I enjoy...but). Hopefully this time I will get a chance to use the D70.;)

[Norm in Fujino]

As always.... well done. Too bad I'm only in Japan a week at a time, and it's almost always business or going out with the local guys (both of which I enjoy...but). Hopefully this time I will get a chance to use the D70.;)

Thanks Camille and George. George, these kinds of spectacular event are all too infrequent. There are only two annual ones that I know of in the Kanto area, although there are no doubt more if I looked around, and I'm sure there are even more elsewhere (perhaps in Tohoku area). I'm going to try and schedule this as a regular field trip for students in coming years. Of course, other kinds of shrine and temple festivals are easier to see, but most aren't quite so unusual as the firewalks.