Traveling around Kyushu | Karatsu

Aug 01 | Evan | No Comments |

It’s no secret that I love Kamikochi and Kyoto, but Karatsu certainly deserves to be on my short list of favorite areas in Japan. Located in Saga Prefecture in Kyushu, about an hour or so away from Hakata in Fukuoka, lies the peaceful and beautiful ocean side city of Karatsu. There isn’t much going on in terms of nightlife here, but lot’s and lot’s of beautiful scenery for great opportunities to take photos of Japan. Compared to my days in Nagasaki and Sasebo, the weather was finally a little nicer and actually saw the sun… I wasn’t sure it actually was available in Kyushu!

Like Nagasaki, Karatsu has both the ocean and mountains, which who doesn’t love having both? Also, it’s a good base for visiting rice terraces, waterfalls (Mikaeri and Kannon Falls) and some nice beaches that if you didn’t know any better, looks like you are in the tropics. Niji no Matsubara is the most famous beach in the area, but along the coast, there are a few other smaller ones that look like something out of a movie. Besides that, we went up to Nanatsugama Caves which was pleasant as well. I didn’t take any photos of it due to other places I wanted to visit, but Karatsu Castle is up on a hill and could certainly make for some interesting photos as well. All in all, I’m a fan of Karatsu and certainly hope to go back for the upcoming rice terrace photography tour of Japan I’m planning.

Traveling around Kyushu | Sasebo

Jul 29 | Evan | No Comments |

After visiting Nagasaki, the next place I wanted to scout for an upcoming rice terrace photo tour of Japan was Sasebo. Like with Nagasaki, the weather in Sasebo was mostly rainy and didn’t really allow me to take photos of areas I wanted when I wanted to, but I could at least check out the area and some observatories of Kujukushima. The Kujuku Islands are part of Saikai National Park and can be really beautiful and provide great photographic opportunities in Japan. Like with my time in Nagasaki though, for the most part, I was stuck with strong rain. Even so, I could see the potential for future photography tours of Kyushu that Sasebo and Kujuku Islands could provide. Due to the bad weather, most of these photos were taken with just my iPhone.

Traveling around Kyushu | Nagasaki

Jul 28 | Evan | No Comments |

This summer I had the pleasure to travel to Japan and explore parts of Kyushu that I had previously not visited. I wanted to go to Kyushu to scout some locations for an upcoming photography tour of Japanese rice terraces or Tanada in Japanese. My timing wasn’t the best to take pictures of tanada as it was rainy season and too late to see the rice terraces filled with water, but really this was just for scouting more than anything else. As I mentioned, when I was in Nagasaki, it was the rainy season and I’d say we had about 2 hours of non raining daytime in the 2 days I was there. This also prevented me from taking photos of the great night view in Nagasaki, but oh well!

As a city, I really enjoyed Nagasaki and really liked the way it’s built into the hills and mountains in the area. There are about 4 or 5 different places to get great views and photos of the city, if the weather is nice! You will just have to google “Nagasaki Night View Photos” or squint/imagine while looking at my pictures as due to time constraints/weather, I was only there during the day.

Panoramic Kamikochi Photos

Jun 02 | Evan | No Comments |

Just a quick post today, again from Kamikochi. After sharing my favorite black and white photos from Kamikochi, here are my favorite panoramic photos of Kamikochi. All of these photos were simply taken with the iPhone camera’s panoramic photo tool and just cropped a little in photoshop. If you have been looking around the blog recently, you will recognize places like Myojin Pond, Kappabashi and Taisho Pond, and if you have been looking around Japan Photo Guide recently, posts from May would be a good place to see more photos from Kamikochi!