Here we have the Buddha, just chilling out in the wild, sitting on his lotus blossom chair and meditating away on whatever it is that buddhas meditate about: How to save poor, unenlightened jokers like myself, I hope.
This is from a really nice little zen temple I stumbled upon the other day called eisenzenji (永泉禅寺1). It’s just a tiny thing, probably only visited for the cemetery, but it was isolated enough to be quiet and peaceful. So much so that I could hear at least a few Uguisu (鶯 / Japanese Bush Warbler) singing, which is a sound I associate with the peaceful countryside as I rarely hear them in busy areas.
In addition to my usual effects, I added a bit of a vignette to draw your focus to the statue. I also burnt down the edges a few hints to further isolate the scene. I liked the effect both of these gave.
Peter Durfee notes that it might be read eisenji with 禅 being stuck in there simply to indicate it’s a zen temple. ↩
soo peaceful.. just looking at it I can hear a river, it makes me feel at ease. How did you get the burnt effect cg?
I used a plugin called onOne. Kind of overkill — it would be easy enough to do with the dodge/burn tool — but much faster this way.
I never grow tired of seeing these beautiful and peaceful Buddhist statues.
Same here. So I just keep photoing everyone of them I find.