Daily HDR Photo — Golden Shrine

Today’s photo is of Shiratori Shrine, a relatively small neighborhood shrine. Shiratori actually means white bird, but the way the sunlight is hitting in this photo really gives it a nice, almost golden, glow, hence Golden Shrine.

Traditional formal shrine ritual

Once upon a time, there was pretty formal ritual one had to follow when visiting the shrine. Ready?

Approaching the shrine, you bow deeply (90 degrees) at the torii gate before entering. Remove your hat. As you approach the main shrine area, you must walk on the right or left side of the path — never the middle, as that is for kami-sama1.

When you enter the main shrine area, you must first head to the water basin and perform temizu, that is you must purify yourself. You can see this area on the far right in the photo. Bow respectfully, then pick up the ladle with your right hand. Wash your left hand, then your right, then rinse your mouth, rinse your feet, and finally hold the ladle upwards so that you rinse the ladle itself. This all has to be done with the same scoop of water, so don’t use a lot

All clean, approach the main shrine building. Pull the rope to ring the bell, give a donation (5 yen is popular to give, because the 5 yen coin is considered lucky), clap twice loudly to wake the kami if he is sleeping, bow deeply twice2, then put your hands together and pray. Never pray for money, which is considered very rude and likely to incur the wrath of the kami. But praying for success in business is ok. All said and done, you can leave. But be sure to turn and bow deeply one more time when you exit the final torii gate.

Whew… That’s quite a lot to handle! Don’t worry, most Japanese these days don’t know these steps either and no one follows them except for older people.

About the photo

This area is a bit tricky to photo because it is surrounded by trees, cutting off the sunlight most of the day. Midday light is much to direct and harsh for a good photo, so that leaves just a small windows of time to get decent light. Many photographers keep detailed notebooks with best times for best angles of light and so on. I’m not very good at keeping notes, though. Luckily, I happened to be in the area when I noticed the light was good. A mad dash and I made it. Yes!

I weaved some textures in to further enhance the lighting and give the sky a neat effect.

Comments/questions? What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Misc Photo info

Click on the photo for a larger version, and go grab the original at flickr. It is completely free: Download it, share it with your friends, do whatever you want with it, just please give me credit and link back to this page.