2016 Cherry Blossom Photography Tour of Japan | Maiko Portrait Session in Kyoto

May 29 | Evan | No Comments |

If you have stopped by my blog before, you may have noticed my group tours to Japan have participated in a few portrait sessions with real maiko as the subject of our portrait session in Kyoto.  It’s rare for visitors or really Japanese as well, to meet a real maiko or geiko (geiko is what geisha in Kyoto are called), so it’s a special experience just meeting a maiko and even more specials to be allowed to take portraits of a maiko.

In general, the weather for the 2016 Cherry Blossom trip had been great, with only 2 days with really bad and rainy weather.  One of our rainy days in Kyoto happened to be on the day we had a portrait session scheduled with a maiko.  Cloudy would’ve been perfect weather to provide soft light for our portrait session in Kyoto, but rainy was almost as nice as we had a location that would keep the maiko covered and protected from the weather, but still could create some nice portraits with mostly natural light.

 

As it often is, the portrait session was one of the highlights of our group photo tour of Japan!  Below is a gallery of a few more of Patricia’s photos, my photos and also a few by Mami Yasui including some of the behind the scenes and our interactions with our lovely maiko!

With Tokyo, Hiroshima, Miyajima and Himeji Castle already visited, next up for the 2016 cherry blossom tour was Kyoto, my favorite city in Japan!  After Kyoto we would continue our tour of Japan to photography Mt. Fuji and the Fuji Five Lakes, still chasing and photographing the cherry blossoms around Japan!  Interested in joining the 2017 cherry blossom tour?  Please contact me today to start your trip to Japan during cherry blossom season or any other time you’d like!