Lantern

These platform lanterns are to be found at many temples in Japan, particularly Buddhist temples. I understand that they are full of symbolism, but that aside they are also visually very interesting, plenty of detail, sturdy yet graceful.

Of course the temptation is always to feature the temple itself in any picture, but here I have tried to emphasise the lantern in various ways, which together seem to work.

As for the sky, that was a happy accident! We visited this temple in the pouring rain, so the original sky in my photo is very grey. That gave a rather dull effect, so I experimented with a bluer colour, which wasn’t really much better. However, whilst adjusting the sky tone I accidentally knocked the red colour component very high (in a drawing app everything eventually comes down to a multitude of settings – colour included) and suddenly I had this rose colour in the background. I’m not pretending for a moment that it looks realistic, but for me it does make the whole image more lively and interesting.