Black pine in the black of night. From the collection of Masahiko Kimura (The Magician). All the photos in this post are from an El Tim Bonsai facebook photo album title KIMURA.
It’s still mid-summer vacation time and we’re still digging deep into our archives. This post is from September 2012. Our last post featured The Magician (Masahiko Kimura), so it looks like we’ve got a theme, at least for the moment. To amuse myself I changed the title from simply The Magician at Night to what you see above.
Shooting in the dark
It’s not too often you see bonsai photographed in the dark. In this case the effects are rather magical (no pun intended). If you look at the entire El Tim KIMURA album, you’ll see a bunch of photos of phenomenal bonsai that were shot during the day, followed by a few photos of phenomenal bonsai that were shot at night. The difference is striking, and though I like the day photos a lot, it’s the night photos that really got me.
Whose brilliant idea?
I wonder who came up with the brilliant idea to shoot at night. Kimura? The El Tim people? Someone else? Either way, hats off and thumbs up.
A younger version of this famous tree is on the back cover of The Magician.
Thanks to El Tim Bonsai for the great photos (and my apologies for some cropping on a couple) and of course The Magician, Masahiko Kimura for the great bonsai.
The first pine is a red pine. If i remember correctly it was from Daizo Iwasaki. There was a great article about this pine in BonsaiFocus in 2009. It’s a red pine, imported from Korea begin 2000.
Best
David
It’s a pitty that most of the times the same known trees are photographed and published from Kimura’s garden. Would love to see new, unknown trees from him.
Night pics of bonsai trees are great! Because of the black/dark background the flash on the camera makes the immediate object brighter than it would with natural daylight. Due to this, the trees features and colors are enhanced and it creates almost a 3D image effect since the light and focus are all centered on the object. The brighter the colors, the more intense a night image is (like a colorful flower). Just make sure the camera being used has a very good focus and preferably a night photo setting. Also a double flash to eliminate the glare you might catch from a sinlge flash.
Great collection of fine bonsai
Thank David,
I wonder if Kimura is keeping the pine for Mr Iwasaki’s family or if he now owns it. In any case it’s a great tree.
I’ll keep my eyes open for lesser known Kimura trees.
Hi Erick,
Thanks for the photo tips. Maybe you or some others readers can send us some more bonsai night photos.