Lanterns In Gion

This photograph was one of the last frames I shot during a culturally rich and photographically prodigious week I spent in Kyoto, Japan. Walking back to my "minshuku" (Japanese bed and breakfast) after a long day of sightseeing, strolling and of course shooting, I came across this town square with rows and rows of traditional Japanese hanging lanterns. Rather than having to brainstorm ideas, I had compositions and exposure values flooding my head before I could even fully extract the legs of my tripod. This was going to be a fun session! After all, there are so many different aspects of photography to get creative with here. The inner glow of the lanterns being the only light source enabled me to play with some really long exposures, the depth and length of the rows allowed for countless composition options and the Shogun Era "kamon" (family crests) and Japanese characters made perfect visuals for some great "sense of place" photographs.
For this exposure, I decided to place three rows of lanterns running lengthwise and diagonally through the frame. This really leads the viewers eye through the entire photograph, starting with the large, sharply focused lanterns in the foreground on the left hand side of the frame and moving towards the distant, softer ones in the right hand side of the frame. Everything else being equal, I find it usually best to move through a frame from left to right as this is the direction most people read and therefore find the most natural.
Taking this principle to a whole new level and applying it to fine-art, we created this triptych which really does seem to light up a room, even if it doesn't do so literally.