Enter into the shrine.

This is the entrance to Shiratori Shrine (白鳥神社). This shrine is next to the very first apartment I lived at in Japan. Or, was next to. The apartment is no longer there. One thing you quickly learn living in Japan is that buildings rarely last long here.

Anyway, I used to visit this shrine nearly daily. It has a nice vibe, lots of green space, and many insects hang out here so it always has a pleasant noise of their singing and buzzing.

I always liked this entrance to the shrine. As far as shrines go, it's not terribly impressive, but I like how it was designed. Down the path then up the stairs at the end to enter the inner shrine.

I tried to mimic the effect somewhat of walking down this path with the cicada buzzing around me.

This is a small res version of that video, as evidently at the time I uploaded it Vimeo downsized it. I'll have to find the original and upload it to 3speak. I forget how I made it, actually...

Apologies for the shiny colors and somewhat unclear appearance. I made this photo back when I was first experimenting with HDR. For an HDR shot, I think it holds up fairly well. One of these days I'll go back to the original and process a better and cleaner (and non-HDR) version.

	David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.