Japanese Armor Photography

[Ranger]

I had originally posted these photos on Toraba's Japanese armor forum, but unfortunately the place barely has a pulse anymore.

Anyway, the photos below are from my last visit to Japan two years ago. They sat dormant in my hard drive until a few days ago and thought I would post them.

The genesis of my experiment was trying to capture images of famous armor/arms, remove the background and glass reflection and create the illusion of the subject placed in a pseudo-studio type environment. The majority of post-processing was done with Photoshop.

Unfortunately, the Tokyo National Museum had the armor exhibit closed off for renovation, so I missed a great opportunity to photograph some beautiful armor. I am going back to Tokyo later this year. Hopefully, I'll get lucky next time.

5th Century Armor: Tokyo National Museum


5th Century Armor: Tokyo National Museum


Ii Naomoto: Hikone Castle Museum


Ii Naosuke: Hikone Castle Museum


Ii Naoaki: Hikone Castle Museum


Ando Shigekatsu: Osaka Castle Museum
*Armor of Ii Samurai that presented the head of Kimura Shigenari to Tokugawa Ieyasu after the Battle of Wakae (Osaka Summer Campaign)


Edo Armor: Himeji Castle


Edo Armor: Himeji Castle


Ashiguru Armor: Matsumoto Castle Museum


Katsumoto Katagiri: Osaka Castle Museum


Edo Period Gusoku: Personal Collection


Ii Koshirae: Hikone Castle Museum


Tanto (Kunihiro): Tokyo National Museum


Ikeda Tsuneoki Gunbai: Osaka Castle Museum


Ii Sashimomo: Osaka Castle Museum

_________________
You may be whatever you resolve to be.
- Stonewall Jackson

[JLBadgley]

They need to have the actual image, but the way that the site is displaying them, you only get a directory.

Make them [url][/url] links and at least people can click on them. Otherwise, make sure that the last four or so characters are the image file extension (e.g. ".gif", ".jpg", etc.)

-Josh

[Tsubame1]

Paul, refreshing thread. Thanks.
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Carlo

[goldendragon]

nice picturss, nice work ! I always melt if I see such a works of art.... any more coming or to be seen somewhere ?
Greetz
Danny

[GonbeiS91]

Great work! Is curious how big are the crests in the third photo!

[Ranger]

goldendragon, actually there are more armor/nihonto photos I am working on. I went to Tokyo during Thanksgiving (about 6 wks ago) and captured some very nice works of art on display at the Tokyo National Museum. The last time I visited Tokyo in 2009 the 2d floor was closed for repair so I missed out on the armor displayed there. This time, I took over 700 photos inside the museum, but unfortunately my real world duties make it difficult to spend any time on my images. I was able to work on the two images below. When I am ready to post all the new photos, I will create a new thread instead of placing them here.

Edo Period Tsuba


Tokyo Pano taken from Mori Tower. Massive composite panograph, but the end result came out better than I expected. When blown out to 100% you can see computer monitors and people in many of the windows. The original image is 975 mb large.


GonbeiS91, I'm going on memory, but I would estimate the Ii Naomoto maedate to be just under 2 feet in length.
_________________
You may be whatever you resolve to be.
- Stonewall Jackson