Nada Kenka Matsuri
Japan
- HimejiPosted on October 15, 2009 by Stefan
Filed under Gallery, Himeji, Matsuri, Nada Kenka Matsuri
The Nada Kenka(=fighting) Matsuri in Himeji is famous in Japan for being one of the rougher festivals on a similar level to the Kishiwada Danjiri. It is dangerous, risky, sometimes frightening, yet colourful and beautiful all at the same time. This year one person died (probably crushed by one of the floats tipping over) and i saw ambulance cars arriving and leaving the place on a frequent interval.
The festival takes place each year on the 14th and 15th of October in the are around Nada. On the first day each of the 7 districts has a team of people carrying a 1 tonne heavy nicely decorated shrine (and several not so delicate shrines that can be banged, trashed and damaged in the real fights) to a ground located between step hills.
On the second day of the festival the real fighting action happens. The group of men are crashing and banging the shrines into each other and every so often they tend to fall and roll into the crowd. Unfortunately i was a bit far away from this action to make any good pictures. If you happen to go to this festival then make sure you bring a good zoom lens with you (300mm or more) as the festival place is very crowded and you will struggle to get any good seats close to the action.
Websites: The official website for the festival is here.
Transport: About 3 minutes’ walk from Shirahama-no-miya Station. Shirahama-no-miya Station is about 10 minutes from Sanyo Himeji Station on the Sanyo Dentetsu Honsen Line.
You are a witness of the accident, when I was watching the news on TV, I thought you were there and you were, uhmm..I like #15, a boy in the pic is cute :>” I don’t know about photos, but you shared much bigger part of this pic to the float, so it tells us the weight of it
oh, I am impudent to tell you something about ” composition” 
Nhmm, interesting … I thought you would go for picture #11
! .. anyway, i still have no idea really about composition and what i am doing with my camera. There is this guy living in Tokyo (Alfie Goodrich) who happens to be a professional photographer giving lessons on photography. If i ever happen to go up north and have the time then i would love to get him to teach me a couple of things, his pictures are awesome.
oh, no~ it is a misunderstanding! Even Sumo Wreslers’ Fundoshi(mawashi), I am not happy at all
I could see every drop of water on one of his works, is it possible if you can handle “exposure”? I am impudent again 
I looked into his site,and found his works are awesome. I really like these, you have a good information,don’t you?
I am still waiting for winning the 3-oku-yen lottery
… photography isn’t a cheap hobby if you are after the best picture quality 
! But anyway .. i think i still have plenty of other things to learn before a jump to a professional camera makes sense.