Photographing a goshuin: how far is all right?

This article covers only how to think about photographing goshuin, and posting them online, in relation to the shrine or temple that wrote them. It does not go near whether photography is allowed at any particular place. That is each place's own decision, and it is not the sort of thing an outside page can honestly tabulate.

Can you photograph a goshuin?

There is no nationwide rule about photographing goshuin, and whether you may take a photograph on the grounds is each shrine's or temple's own decision. Goshuin are written at each place on its own understanding of the practice, and photography is no different. The notice on site and what the office tells you come first, and no general rule outranks them.

But "photographing a goshuin" covers two situations of quite different kinds: photographing the goshuin you received, in your own hands, and photographing on the grounds. Simply separating those two removes most of the uncertainty.

Your own table and the grounds are two different questions

Photographing the goshuin you received at your own desk, once you are home, is a different thing from photographing on the grounds. All that is in the frame is the goshuin in front of you: no people, no grounds. It is done to keep a record in your own hands, and it is rarely treated as a problem.

Taking a photograph at the office while your goshuin is being written is photography on the grounds, and photography of a person as well. As the next section says, it is not something to do without asking.

If you are building a record from photographs afterwards, only the first of those is needed. There is no reason to raise a camera at the place you came to worship. Concentrating on receiving the goshuin while you are there, and photographing it once you are settled, in fact leaves you with better photographs and a better record. Working out the visit dates from the photographs you piled up, and putting them in order by book and page is covered in a separate article.

What happens on the grounds splits into two layers: what can be said at any shrine or temple, and what is left to each one to decide. They tend to be talked about together as "goshuin etiquette", but they are not the same kind of statement.

What can be said at any shrine or temple

Three things can be said anywhere — pay your respects first, wait quietly while the goshuin is written, and do not photograph the writer or the office without asking — and the notice on site outranks all three. None of them is the rule of a particular shrine or temple. They follow from what a visit is, and from the fact that a person is writing for you.

Pay your respects first. Many people receive a goshuin as the proof of a visit, and the usual order is to worship and then go to the office. At busy times, though, some places ask you to leave your book before you worship and collect it afterwards. Where they do, follow what they ask.

Wait quietly while it is being written. Speaking to the writer mid-brush, leaning in over their hands, or hurrying them along all get in the way of the writing itself.

Do not photograph the writer or the office without asking. This is less about goshuin than about photographing people. Neither the person writing nor anyone else at the office is there to be photographed. If you want a photograph, ask first, every time.

Follow the notice and what you are told. Where a notice about photography is posted on the grounds, that is that shrine's or temple's decision. Even where it differs from the general advice, in that place the notice is the thing that is right.

What is left to each shrine and temple

Whether photography on the grounds is allowed and how far it extends, photography around the desk and the shrine or temple office, the use of a tripod or a selfie stick, and posting a goshuin you received online are all handled differently from place to place. None of them is something a single answer can be written for.

Of these, posting online is the one where some shrines and temples ask visitors to refrain. The reasons differ from place to place and cannot be guessed at from outside. Check the notice on site and any official guidance, and where nothing is said and you cannot tell, err towards not posting.

Where does the shared etiquette end and each place's own decision begin?

For photographing and posting goshuin, what holds at every shrine and temple reaches only as far as how the visitor behaves; how much photography and posting is permitted differs from one place to the next. Here are the two sections above, re-sorted by subject.

The capture location left in a photograph, and the notes you wrote for yourself, are yours to check before you show anything, separately from what the shrine or temple decides; how to strip the capture location and your notes out before you show someone is a separate article.

How to write about it when you do show it

Even where you have confirmed that posting is fine, avoid writing that turns the number into a competition, and writing that ranks shrines and temples against each other. Neither is fitting to aim at the person who wrote for you, or at the place that gave you the goshuin.

Talking in terms of how many you have gathered, or which places you have conquered, makes something received as the mark of a visit look like a score. Saying what you thought of the design is natural enough in itself, but once you put places in order of merit, respect for the one that wrote for you stops coming across.

Building the record afterwards is not a substitute for the visit

Making a record from photographs, or settling a visit date after the fact, exists so that visits you have already made can be traced back later. It does not stand in for the visit. Nor is it any help to someone who wants the goshuin without the visit.

With a record in place, you can remember when you went where. When you return to the same shrine or temple, you can also check your record for whether you already have a goshuin from there. That is what the organising is for.

If the record has fallen behind and a backlog has built up, getting back on track after your goshuin record stalled covers that, and for pre-written sheets still unpasted, for anyone holding a stack of loose kakioki goshuin deals with those.