Temple of the Emerald Buddha (Wat Phra Kaew)

by Posted in Buildings/Structures, Film Leave a comment
emeraldbuddha-1

The last couple of days have been wet and dreary so I thought I’d go back to my long term project of scanning my old negatives. These were taken at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok sometime in the late 1990s-early 2000s. At least I think it was the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, but it might have been the Grand Palace. I seem to remember that they are in close proximity but I can’t remember which pictures came from where. According to Wikipedia:

Wat Phra Kaew (Thai: วัดพระแก้ว, rtgs: Wat Phra Kaeo, IPA: [wát pʰráʔ kɛ̂ːw], Pronunciation, English: Temple of the Emerald Buddha; full official name Wat Phra Si Rattana Satsadaram, Thai: วัดพระศรีรัตนศาสดาราม, IPA: [wát pʰráʔ sǐː rát.ta.náʔ sàːt.sa.daː.raːm]) is regarded as the most sacred Buddhist temple (wat) in Thailand. The Emerald Buddha housed in the temple is a potent religio-political symbol and the palladium (protective image) of Thai society. It is located in Phra Nakhon District, the historic centre of Bangkok, within the precincts of the Grand Palace.

The main building is the central phra ubosot, which houses the statue of the Emerald Buddha. According to legend, this Buddha image originated in India where the sage Nagasena prophesized that the Emerald Buddha would bring “prosperity and pre-eminence to each country in which it resides”, the Emerald Buddha deified in the Wat Phra Kaew is therefore deeply revered and venerated in Thailand as the protector of the country. Historical records however dates its finding to Chiang Rai in the 15th century where, after it was relocated a number of times, it was finally taken to Thailand in the 18th century. It was enshrined in Bangkok at the Wat Phra Kaew temple in 1782 during the reign of Phutthayotfa Chulalok, King Rama I (1782–1809). This marked the beginning of the Chakri Dynasty of Thailand, whose present sovereign is Bhumibol Adulyadej, King Rama IX.

The Emerald Buddha, a dark green statue, is in a standing form, about 66 centimetres (26 in) tall, carved from a single jade stone (“emerald” in Thai means deep green colour and not the specific stone). It is carved in the meditating posture in the style of the Lanna school of the northern Thailand. Except for the Thai King and, in his stead, the Crown Prince, no other persons are allowed to touch the statue. The King changes the cloak around the statue three times a year, corresponding to the summer, winter, and rainy seasons, an important ritual performed to usher good fortune to the country during each season.

Unfortunately I apparently didn’t get a picture of the Emerald Buddha itself.

emeraldbuddha-2
emeraldbuddha-3
emeraldbuddha-4
emeraldbuddha-5

At Home – Briarcliff Manor

by Posted in Abstracts, Black & White, Things Leave a comment
athomebriarcliff-1

Yesterday was Black Friday and my wife wanted to go shopping. Since the demise of our old Toyota about a year ago we now have only one car and I didn’t feel much like going to the mall so I stayed at home in Briarcliff Manor. To keep myself occupied I walked around the garden taking some pictures of various and sundry garden ornaments.

athomebriarcliff-2

Well

athomebriarcliff-3

Lion Head

athomebriarcliff-4

Cherub in the Ivy

athomebriarcliff-5

Cherub – Close up

athomebriarcliff-6

Lady Fountain

Henri Cartier Bresson on Rules

by Posted in Photographers, Photography Leave a comment

Fibonacci spiral above a photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Source: Eric KimObjectivity vs Subjectivity: What Makes a Great Street Photograph?

Here’s what Mr. Cartier Bresson had to say on the subject in “The Decisive Moment“:

In applying the Golden Rule, the only pair of compasses at the photographer’s disposal is his own pair of eyes. Any geometrical analysis, any reducing of the picture to a schema, can be done only (because of its very nature) after the photograph has been taken, developed and printed – and then it can be used only for a port-mortem examination of the picture. I hope we will never see the day when photo shops sell little schema grills to clamp onto our viewfinders; and that the Golden Rule will never be found etched on our ground glass.

Curiously this is exactly what has happened. All three of my digital cameras allow various grids to be superimposed on the viewfinder. Thenkfully it’s possible to turn off the grids rather than have them etched permanently on “our ground glass”.

The above picture is taken from a long (4000 plus words) post on Eric Kim’s blog. It contains many other pictures, several of which have similar geometrical shapes on them. I guess Mr. Kim is engaged in exactly the kind of “post mortem” that Cartier-Bresson talks about. It seems clear that whatever “rules” Cartier-Bresson followed he wasn’t thinking about them too much at the time he pressed the shutter. Possibly he had absorbed them to such an extent that they were such a part of him and had become intuitive. Or maybe he was just a natural.