2017 Private Summer Tour of Japan | Tokyo

Aug 10 | Evan | No Comments |

The first full day of my private tour of Japan was spent as a day trip in Nikko, visiting a master Japanese sword smith and some of the sights that make Nikko magnificent. After our time in Tochigi Prefecture, we had a few days to explore, photograph, experience and eat our way through Tokyo. Though even if we had many days, there is never enough time to see, and especially eat and photograph everything in Tokyo!

Also, back to when I mentioned I love creating private tours of Japan for the amount of personalization I can put into it, for this tour it meant including some stops for anime and Studio Ghibli which happens on the majority of my trips to Japan, but also introduced me to another side of Japan that I knew of but didn’t really know much about, brand name fashion in Japan like BAPE and Supreme, not based in Japan but has more stores in Japan than the rest of the world combined. This along with how Japanese owners are famous for keeping items in good condition, mean that Japan and Tokyo is a mecca for pristine second hand goods like Supreme. So along with photography and eating, there was a lot of shopping while traveling around Japan.

We also made time for a cooking lesson with a Japanese chef in her home in Tokyo, which is always one of most popular experiences with my visitors to Japan. Besides the experience and connecting with a local family, the food is always amazing.

Between shopping and eating, we of course managed to do some sightseeing, photography and exploring. Including one night after dinner we went to Hie Shrine where there was a nice little Summer Festival going on with taiko drums and dancing. Another perfect opportunity to play with the stabilization for Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II. The three photos below are all hand held with shutter speeds of 1/10, 0.4 and 0.8.

See more photos below or the full report to see more posts from the custom and private photography tour of Japan.

2017 Private Summer Tour of Japan | Nikko

Aug 07 | Evan | No Comments |

After an awesome morning photographing and learning from a Japanese master sword smith, our small group continued our tour of Japan to Nikko. Nikko is in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo and well regarded for it’s beauty in both nature and man made structures like the mausoleum of the Tokugawa Shoguns, Toshogu. Nikko is also a fantastic spot in Autumn to see the the Fall foliage with it’s hiking trails, lakes (Lake Chuzenji is most famous), scenic mountains and waterfalls (Ryuzu Waterfall and Kegon Waterfall are both great). There is actually a famous Japanese saying that translates something like “you haven’t seen beauty until you’ve seen Nikko” or substituting beauty with magnificent.

This day though, while not Autumn was a Summer day but thanks to some overcast and misty weather in Nikko, the temperature felt closer to a day in October than a day in June! For a place like Nikko, this misty weather isn’t horrible for photos and it did let me slow the shutter speed down quite a bit to play with the awesome IBIS (in body image stabilization) of my Olympus OMD-EM1 Mark II. For other photographers, the shutter speeds of the photo just above this paragraph and the photos below, in order from top to bottom are 1/13th of a second, 1/5th of a second and 1/10th of a second. All of those are handheld, no tripod.

Back to the private tour of Japan though! As much as I would have liked to visit Lake Chunzenji, Kegon Falls and Ryuzu Falls, photographers do tend to move at a slower pace than most tourists in Japan and we just had time to visit Toshogu and Kanmangafuchi Abyss. Toshogu is the mausoleum of the first Tokugawa Shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu and walking around it certainly makes you think of the famous Japanese saying I mentioned earlier. The Kanmangafuchi Abyss is a pleasant walk along a gorge and also known for it’s “Narabi Jizo” or “Jizo in a line.” See more more photos of our time in Nikko below.

2017 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan | Fuji Five Lakes

Jun 01 | Evan | No Comments |

The last stop for our group of photographers visiting Japan before returning to Tokyo was Fuji Kawaguchiko. Lake Kawaguchiko is one of the Fuji Five Lakes and offers stunning views of Mt. Fuji no matter what time of year. Thankfully this is the case as we were early for cherry blossoms this year. Though we did manage to find perhaps the one single cherry blossom “tree” in full bloom at the time.

Besides Lake Kawaguchi, we also visited neighboring Lake Shoji and also Lake Yamanaka. Throughout most of our stay in the Fuji Five Lakes we could see Japan’s famously shy mountain, though often with cloudy skies behind and above Mt. Fuji.

Also, the Kubota Itchiku Art Museum gave me another chance to test out my Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II’s in body image stabilization. The in body image stabilization (IBIS) combined with the the M.Zuiko ED 12-100mm f4.0 IS PRO is suppose to give me 6.5 stops of image stabilization. Once again, I was quite impressed with the results as the photos below are 1 second handheld and 8/10 of a second handheld.

1 second handheld

8/10th of a second handheld

The 2017 Cherry Blossom Photography Tour of Japan took our small group of photographers to Tokyo, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Kyoto, Wazuka and Fuji Five Lakes. Take a look at the 2017 Cherry Blossom Tour Trip report to see more from our tour of Japan during cherry blossom season. Want to visit Japan during cherry blossom season with Japan Photo Guide? The 2018 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan for photographers has limited spaces available, book now!

: Created and Courtesy of Tim Durham

: Created and Courtesy of Tim Durham

: 1 second handheld

: 8/10th of a second handheld

2017 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan | Kyoto

May 24 | Evan | No Comments |

After visiting Tokyo, Hiroshima, Miyajima and Himeji, the 2017 Cherry Blossom tour of Japan headed north again to Kyoto. I’ve said it many times before, Kyoto is my favorite city in Japan and perhaps in the world. The mix of modern and traditional Japan is fantastic and there are always opportunities for photographers visiting Kyoto.

For our group of photographers touring Japan in cherry blossom season, the cherry blossoms had momentarily caught up with us and cherry blossoms were in full bloom in Kyoto! Though cherry blossoms in Kyoto are spectacular, there are many other places that regardless of the cherry blossoms are wonderful for photography. Kyoto is extremely crowded during this peak season for cherry blossoms, so some of these other place that don’t have cherry blossoms or aren’t famous for their cherry blossoms can be a nice place to take a break from the crowds of tourists visiting Kyoto.

No matter how many days you stay in Kyoto, it would be hard to run out of photography opportunities. No matter what time of year, there are always a few places I love returning to like the Golden Pavilion (photo at top of this post), Bamboo Forest of Arashiyama and Fushimi Inari Shrine.

Before the gallery I also wanted to touch up on one feature of my new Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II. There are quite a few things I love about my new mirrorless camera, size and weight is obvious and then there is the amazing image stabilization. I found that quite a lot of times during my trip I was trying to push the limits of the in body image stabilization (IBIS) which is suppose to have 5.5 stops of stabilization and also combined it with the M.Zuiko ED 12-100mm f4.0 IS PRO for an extra stop. Take a look at a few examples below, first two were hand held with a little body bracing at 1 second. Yes, a full second! The cherry blossom one was done with me holding the camera up above my head using flipped screen to compose, not super sharp because there was some wind but still quite amazing for what I was doing.