In response to the post on BonsaiNut, I am attaching a slideshow of masterpiece bonsai that I was able to observe in Japan. I have also seen a selection of masterpiece trees in American and when I can gather some more of my photos from various computers and disks I will post those.
more pics from my trip to Japan…
The Golden Pavilion - Kinkakuji
The Silver Temple - Ginkaku-ji
Ryonaji
since I have been here. So here is something to chew-on. I recently took the time to post pics from my trip to Japan in the Fall of 2000. There are certainly not the best pics but they are pretty web-friendly. I have them posted on my Picasa page but I will load some of my favorites as slideshows below.
Mr Iwasaki’s Garden
Mr. Kimura’s Garden -One of things I will always remember about my visit to Mr. Kimura’s was when we were getting on the bus to leave. I mentioned to Bill V. that this was the first stop and it was going to be hard for the future stops to measure up. In typical Bill fashion:), he just smiled and said, “you have seen anything yet” and walked away. Of course he was right! Not taking anything away from Mr. Kimura’s!
Mr Kobayashi’s
These are stones that I have yet to formally display. Some are a little out of character for viewing stones but I enjoy them.
Since I was a young boy I have always been interested in stones, rocks and fossils. It was very natural transition for me to become interested in viewing stones after I discovered bonsai. This slide show represents a few of what I consider to be my better stones. Although I have spent many many hours looking for good viewing stones, I have yet to find any that I would describe as high quality. Most of the stones here have all been purchased one way or another. I will post my found stones later. I would love to hear some feedback:)
Unfortunately I don’t have the color yet that many of the folks posting on various forums do in their gardens, but here are a few shots from mine. I have been keeping trees for a long time…but this garden was started from scratch a little over 3 years ago. It still has a very long ways to go!
I found two of these in my garden on the same day. This one was about 5″ inches across.
I have had some of these koi for about 6 years now. For the last 3 they have been in a temporary pond until I can build a much larger pond. They range in size from about 15″ to 24″.
I have always been discouraged by the difficulty of portraying 3D trees in a 2D media like pictures… Here are a couple of attempts at creating 360 degree views of a bonsai. This is a Scotts pine that I styled recently. I am not happy with the resolution after I uploaded to Google…I may have to experiment with another solution to this problem. The first one was created using video and actually spinning the tree on a turntable. The second video is composed of 60 still frames.