Kenrokuen in the second half of November, the colour near its peak and the weather unsettled, which turned out to be the point. Walking up to the garden a rainbow opened over the castle hill, the whole slope of trees lit gold under a slate-grey sky. You take that when it is offered.
Inside, the garden does its slower work. Two ponds, both dead still, both holding the maples upside down: one a tangle of red and green crowding the near bank, the other set off by a tall weathered stone pagoda standing in the water. Kenrokuen earns its place among the country's great gardens on afternoons like this.
All on the 55, ISO low where the light held, up where the shade and the dropping sun pulled it down. The gate and the rainbow are on the castle-park side, just outside the garden proper.