Edo Era Japanese Living Room, a photo from Tokyo, Kanto

Photographer's Note

This is a Japanese living room, how it would have been during the Edo era (until around 1860) and in older houses until around 40 years ago. The square fireplace in the floor to the right called an "Irori", is still seen in some traditional buildings today. This time of year, you can also still see the brightly coloured "mochi" balls (rice pound into a sticky mass) stuck on the branches of trees for decoration at this time of year. This is called "Dango Sashi".
I handheld the camera for a 1/8 of a second exposure at F4, as tripods were not allowed in the building.

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Critiques | Translate

felix (52) 2003-01-13 6:23

Wow~ it is really cool to have such a sharp image with handhelding for 1/8 sec. The atmosphere looks nice too.

sam (897) 2003-01-13 13:40

Nice architectural interior shot. The vertical composition adds to the sense of spaciousness, yet you still get a lot of horizontal details like the tree peeking in from the left and the fire pit coming in from the right. Very economical composition. You paid very good attention to the edges of the frame, and I don't see anything unpleasantly cut off. Your hands were impressively steady. The only weakness of this shot is the blown exterior light through the doorway, which would have been almost impossible to avoid. Well done.

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adam (860) 2003-01-14 1:10

You've captured quite a bit of Japanese culture in this one shot. I also noticed the two Daruma dolls hanging around, and the Shinto (?) rope with those white paper lightening things hanging below, next to the smaller Daruma.

Anoop (29) 2003-04-11 7:23

Architectural details and steady hand! Well done.

Porteplume (3327) 2003-04-12 8:02

You let us enter in that Japanese room, and it feels good... You just got the right atmosphere!

momshu (505) 2003-06-12 11:27

Wonderful. My father lived in Japan for 10 yrs. when I was a child and would often explain in detail the architectural aspects of Japan. He would come home & try to duplicate our surroundings. Then he would place the coffee table in such a way and we would imagine it was an Irori but of course it would then translate into a dinner table.
This image and fine detail has brought back some wonderful & odd childhood memories.