# The Exit



## Bifurcator (Jun 22, 2008)

Just a small exit that the monks use as a side access to a fairly old and fairly well known temple.










The Exit​


- Enjoy!
Crits and comments always welcome!


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## Bifurcator (Jun 23, 2008)

.








I could tell you all wanted more! ​



- Enjoy!
Crits and comments always welcome!


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## Suzumushi (Jun 23, 2008)

Nice colors on the first one.


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## BoblyBill (Jun 23, 2008)

I like the first one a lot but it seems just a tad oversharpened.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 4, 2008)

I think so too.  Trying to squeeze all that detail into a tiny little image like that is hard. I'm not good at sacrifice. 


Thanks for the comments all! Sincerely appreciated!


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## Chewbecca (Jul 4, 2008)

that first picture is GREAT!
But I agree, a tad too sharp (and I can only tell because it hurts my eyes a little).  But other than that, it's beautiful.
:mrgreen:


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## Dmitri (Jul 4, 2008)

Great shots, Bifur! I especially like the first one too


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## Bifurcator (Jul 5, 2008)

Chewbecca said:


> that first picture is GREAT!
> But I agree, a tad too sharp (and I can only tell because it hurts my eyes a little).  But other than that, it's beautiful.
> :mrgreen:



Thanks Chewy!
I wonder if there's a way to un-sharpen it?  I think I'm going to try. 




Dmitri said:


> Great shots, Bifur! I especially like the first one too



Thanks Dmitri (Jimmy) - Appreciated it!


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## Chiller (Jul 5, 2008)

Really like the first image.  The colours are great.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 5, 2008)

Thanks Chiller!

I've visited Room 57 a few times now. I can't stay long but I go back. I guess both things mean your work rocks! Anyway, I appreciate the comments! Thanks again.


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## Dmitri (Jul 5, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> Thanks Dmitri (Jimmy) - Appreciated it!




Jimmy?


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## Bifurcator (Jul 5, 2008)

No?   I thought maybe it was a play on Demetri or Demetrius (&#916;&#951;&#956;&#942;&#964;&#961;&#953;&#959;&#962 which in English I'm told is Jimmy or James respectively. 

No?


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## Dmitri (Jul 5, 2008)

Oh lol. I have been told by a Romanian guy that the English equivalent is David, but honestly I don't know.

A quick google search gave this article from Yahoo ( http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080410172353AAZfH0S ) that claims Dmitri is Timothy. So that's now three possibilities :lmao:

In any case, Dmitri isn't even my real name - just an alias I used forever on the internets


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## rjackjames (Jul 6, 2008)

Great capture.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 6, 2008)

Dmitri said:


> Oh lol. I have been told by a Romanian guy that the English equivalent is David, but honestly I don't know.
> 
> A quick google search gave this article from Yahoo ( http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080410172353AAZfH0S ) that claims Dmitri is Timothy. So that's now three possibilities :lmao:
> 
> In any case, Dmitri isn't even my real name - just an alias I used forever on the internets



Hehehe... I had a Greek man (roommate) named Demetrius and a Greek friend named Costus tell me it was Jimmy/James but I don't know anything beyond that either.  Timothy and David huh?  Hmmm... 




rjackjames said:


> Great capture.



Thanks Mr. James!  I'm in the process of re-editing the original now so that will be up in a little while. Hopefully less sharpened. It's a difficult case though the Image has so many ultra-high contrast lines in it and there's CR fringing all over the place.


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## Chiller (Jul 6, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> Thanks Chiller!
> 
> I've visited Room 57 a few times now. I can't stay long but I go back. I guess both things mean your work rocks! Anyway, I appreciate the comments! Thanks again.


 
Thank you for visiting my site.  I'll be sure to save you a coffin in my darkside gallery.  I appreciate you taking the time my friend.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 6, 2008)

I wanna say 'It was my pleasure.' but if I do it will doom my soul for eternity.  "Fun" isn't the right word either but if I say "Morbid and grotesque" will it be taken in the right spirit? That's a puzzler indeed... how to compliment death and gore in a way that let's the artist of such know he's very talented and effectual? :raisedbrow:


Anyway, I edited the image again.  Ummm, I think I like it sharpened better.

Here's the two together. 1st the newly edited one, then the old "over-sharpened" on below it:















​


-Enjoy!
Crits & Comments always welcome!


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## Luke623 (Jul 6, 2008)

The un-sharpened one looks much better.  Great shot!


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## Bifurcator (Jul 7, 2008)

Thanks Luke!

Very much appreciated!


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## MissMia (Jul 7, 2008)

I love that shot! The "new" version is great. 

Which temple is that?


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## Bifurcator (Jul 7, 2008)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=...342,136.354043&spn=0.004081,0.007049&t=k&z=18 <-- Map

Eiheiji (&#27704;&#24179;&#23546, do you know it?


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## MissMia (Jul 7, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> Eiheiji (&#27704;&#24179;&#23546, do you know it?



I don't know it, but I recently acquired all of my grandfather's photos, slides and cameras. He was stationed in Japan in the late 40s. I have hundreds of kodachrome slides of various temples, shrines and Mt. Fuji. I wanted to see if he had taken any photos of the same temple.  I'll go look thru them now.


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## MissMia (Jul 7, 2008)

I couldn't find it tonight, but I'll keep looking in the morning. I did find some very cool shots from Yoneiman Gate, Nikko (?) Maybe I'll have time to scan them in the morning.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 8, 2008)

My brother is a Buddhist priest and I know lots of different temples myself. If you want to (quickly) digitize the collection at like 600x800 or so and either send a dvd of them or put them on-line I think we can identify most or many of them for you - city shots too. We wouldn't need high quality so you wouldn't have to spend allot of time doing it. Just throw 9 or 12 on the scanner bed and go.  Anyway I dunno if you want to but if you do the offer is open! It'd be fun for us so you wouldn't be imposing or anything.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 8, 2008)

MissMia said:


> I couldn't find it tonight, but I'll keep looking in the morning. I did find some very cool shots from Yoneiman Gate, Nikko (?) Maybe I'll have time to scan them in the morning.



Youmei-mon is how it goes in romaji (romaji = Japanese word spelled with English letters). Thats the Toshogu Shrine in Nikko. It's not Sun worship is the classical sense but the theme involves the Sun heavily. Like the national flag from the same period. Nikko means Sunshine. It's a city in Tochigi-ken (ken means prefecture and you can think of it like a county).  Youmei-mon means like "The Positive Affect of Light - Gate". Mon is gate so if you say Youmei-mon gate you're saying gate twice.  Youmei (&#38525;&#26126 literally translates to Positive Discernment but in context with the Sun theme in Onmiyou (or Feng shui from the Chinese Tao traditions) it's the meaning I provided. Feng Shui is still used in modern construction and is pretty interesting to research!

The entire Toshogu shrine is dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu - the greatest of the three greatest Shoguns (the other two being Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi) from that ear about 300 years ago. It was built 1 year after Ieyasu kicked the bucket. Toshogu has a double meaning: 1) The Target (or landing) Of The SunLight From The East, and 2) The rising eastern Sun. I like the first one though because it's more abstract and poetic. 

And for sure, the Toshogu shrine is very photographic! I love it there! There's a great hot-dog stand around the corner too!


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## MissMia (Jul 8, 2008)

Wow! Thank you for the info! Some of the slides are marked, but most are not. I just started scanning a few of them. 

Here is a quick photo so that you get the idea of what I'm dealing with. This is about a fourth of the slides from Japan in the mid to late 40s!


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## Bifurcator (Jul 8, 2008)

Looks like about 30 pages of contact sheets if you do contacts. I'm guessing 60 to 80 slides per row at 5 rows. 75x5= 375, 375/12 (slides per contact) = 30 (contact sheets). if you scan the sheets at 3000x3000 and jpeg that oughtta send fine. Unless your software has that feature where it identifies the image areas and automatically cuts them up - which would be better. Either way is fine with me.

This is going to be fun! If I were a doggy my tail would be wagging!


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