Portland isn’t fantastic just because of Powell’s World of Books or the fact that it has three of the seven best coffee shops in the U.S. (#s 3, 4 and 7!), but it’s also home of not just one, but two of the most authentic oriental gardens outside of their countries of origin. I’m speaking here of the Lan Su Chinese Garden and the Portland Japanese Garden. (Click on any of the hyperlinks for more information.)For the first time in several years, Ann and I decided to visit the Japanese Garden instead of the downtown Lan Su and, of course, brought our cameras with us. In the past, I’d had problems finding interesting shots at the garden. It’s one of those mysteries because, as you will see, it just seems as if there is beauty everywhere and one would think that all one has to do is lift the camera and snap away. Well, just like Japanese gardening, it is never as simple as that and one must work hard to achieve that simplicity of beauty that comes so easily to the eye despite the chaos of the natural world.

We went on a scouting expedition, not expecting to get much, but in anticipation of what things may be like as the colors change for a visit when I’m back home in October. But it took only about 100 feet down the first trail before we’d stopped and started shooting. I quickly realized that this was not going to be one of those days where I wander around aimlessly wondering how to make an interesting image. Despite the bright sunny day, there was plenty to work with. For me and for Ann.

The gardens are arranged in a series of looping trails, creating an entire universe in the garden, but with different types of Japanese gardens along the different loops.

Not only are there gardens, but there are buildings that combine human life with nature to show Japanese culture and traditional architecture as well as gardens like this tea house:

The craftsmanship and respect for materials are carried out throughout the gardens, even to something as simple as a fence that hides modern equipment or a compost mound.

When I was studying architecture, I took a course that wound up being one of my favorite ever, “Concepts in Japanese Architecture” taught by Yuji Kishimoto. It was a seminar course, with paired teams that gave presentations of Japanese “design” (I use the word loosely as will become obvious in a moment) concepts based on individual words. Those words translate into concepts that are incorporated into the different arts and into life in general. So, for example, one of the words dealt with the natural aging of materials and to embrace that aging process into design - much like the weathering of the wood in the fence above, or the rusting of a nail over time. My word was “ma” which deals with the spacing between elements - that point at which there is a tension created that gives energy and life to the two objects. In my readings, I have also come across the term “ma” in other aspects of Japanese culture, to include Japanese sword fighting. It’s not all about design. I wish I had kept my notes from that course, or even the word list that was distributed.

As we walked through the gardens, I kept remembering different concepts that the course had introduced me to . . . realized before my eyes 34 years later.

As you can tell, the lighting conditions weren’t best for photographing, but still there was beauty to be captured and qualities that were revealed in these conditions that were likely not going to be in better, overcast conditions.

One thing I realized very quickly was that the trail had a series of “pull outs” that sometimes were bumps, sometimes were oddly shaped areas that led a step or two off the trail. Usually they were in relatively uninteresting areas - by larger shrubs, or in obvious transition areas from one garden area to the next - and even looked like they were placed there for convenience of the groundskeepers. Knowing Japanese design better than that, I stepped into one of the longer ones - nothing much . . . until you got to the very end where, only then, was the view revealed to you.

This was the view you were meant to see and it’s beauty was not to be diminished by lesser views as you were getting to this point. Call it the Japanese version of those huge billboards at rest stops throughout the American South West that have huge holes cut in them and that say - scenic view here. Traditional Japanese culture tends to be a bit more subtle than ours; unfortunately I can't say the same about Japanese pop culture - WOW! Suffice it to say we didn’t let any of these pull outs pass by without exploring them.

As noted, there were a wide variety of garden types to captivate your imagination.

Some of the views the garden offers are landscapes themselves, others are snippets of beauty for the eye to behold.

And sometimes, it’s the beauty of the plants that grabs your eyes.

Despite the fact that there can be a lot of people at the garden, it’s large enough to feel moments of solitude and to focus on elements of the garden without too much distraction.

The Japanese Garden has a main hall, used for exhibits and, based on information from their website, for moon viewings. It too is splendidly constructed.

As with the other structures, the detail work is impressive.

As are other human elements placed inside the gardens such as this basin.

The main hall, of course, has rock gardens on both sides (as well as elsewhere in the garden).

There were plenty of other areas where I simply failed to capture the beauty or the essence of the garden - particularly the main rock garden as well as the one on the side of the main hall that overlooked the city of Portland. The time of day was just wrong and, while Ann and I were there for a couple of hours, we weren’t about to stay all day until the sun was ready to set. That just gives us more reason to return again and again - I suspect there will always be more to discover on future visits.

As we were on our way to leave, we decided to swing back by the bridge we didn’t cross earlier and to look at the Koi pond. I’m glad we did because it led to some fun photographing and experimentation.

If you think trying to get little kids to do what you want them to do while you’re photographing, think about trying to choreograph fish. You simply have to take as much advantage of whatever it is they offer you!

I finally had what I considered a productive day with a camera at the Japanese Gardens. I think Ann did too!

Portland's Japanese Garden

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Portland's Japanese Garden

I Fought the Ball and . . . (Sung to the Clash's version of the famous, "I Fought the Law . . ." tune)

Yachats Day 3

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