Photo Tour of Japan | Portrait Session in Kyoto

I am going a little out of order from my recent photography tour in Japan with this post here, but this portrait session was such a huge hit with the group, I wanted to go ahead and share it.  After Tokyo and Hokkaido our group travelled to Kyoto.  While the main purpose of this photo tour of Japan was focused around landscapes and nature photography in Japan, I had arranged for two models to wear Kimono clothes and spend some time with us in Kyoto.  The girls rented the clothes from one shop I had used before called Yume Kyoto.  From my past experience, I knew the staff at Yume Kyoto was super friendly and helpful, so it was an easy decision to return to their shop.  Also, I should mention that their shop is conveniently located on the edge of Gion, across the street from Yasaka Shrine.  Yume Kyoto also can do hair and have other options to return the clothes the next day or to your hotel.

For the portrait session, we started out in Maruyama Park then went to Yasaka Shrine before crossing the street over to Gion.  We had a little time left, and with the idea to avoid the crowds that had been joining in on the photos and following us, we went to a small shrine off the Path of Philosophy in Kyoto called Honen-in.  Everyone had a great time and I’m sure next time I plan a group trip to Japan or maybe even for a private custom tour of Japan, I will try to arrange something like this again!

More from this photo tour of Japan is coming soon!  Here is the list of the places we visited and photographed in Japan.

• Shiretoko Five Lakes
• Shiretoko Pass
• Utoro Sunsets
• Furepe Waterfall
• Oshinkoshin Waterfall
• Lake Akan
• Lake Mashu
• Lake Onneto
• Sounkyo Onsen
• Kamikawa Angus Farm
• Ginga Waterfall
• Lake Daisetsuko
• Sounkyo Ropeway
• Oobako
• Blue Pond (Aoi Ikke)
• Shirogane Falls
• Moss Garden Temple (Kokedera)
• Bamboo Forrest in Arashiyama
• Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji)
• Nanzenji
• Fushimi Inari Shrine
• Portrait session with models in kimonos –  You are here!

Interested in your own custom photo tour and experiences in Japan?  Contact Japan Photo Guide today to start your adventure!

Photo Tour of Japan | Shiretoko Five Lakes

In September and October of 2013, Japan Photo Guide and PhotoSafari.ru worked together to prepare a tour for photographers from Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania and of course myself from USA.  Including myself, we had 15 photographers touring Japan from Tokyo to Hokkaido to Kyoto.  After spending a few days in Tokyo, our first stop on our trip to Japan was up to the northern island of Hokkaido, Shiretoko Five Lakes, which is part of Shiretoko National Park.  Our group took a flight from Tokyo to Memanbetsu and then bus to Utoro, a small town just outside of Shiretoko National Park on the Shiretoko Peninsula.  We spent a few days at the Shiretoko Grand Hotel in Utoro and overall I was very pleased with the hotel.   Staff was friendly and helpful, rooms were comfortable and convenient and food was good.  No complaints at all for the hotel we stayed in for our base for Shiretoko National Park…

The weather on the other hand, I had a few complaints!  During our first few days, it was mostly rainy and dreary or cloudy.  That being said, we still had a few nice moments of light to create some great landscapes of the Shiretoko area.  In this post I am sharing photos of Shiretoko Five lakes.  The first lake can always be accessed via a raised walkway no matter when you visit, but other lakes have some restrictions, depending mostly on bear sightings and the season.  That is why, before visiting Shiretoko Goko, it is important that you read their information site as depending on the season, there are different procedures for visiting.  For us, we had to attend a short information session before entering the walkway around most of the lakes.

Weather permitting, each lake provides views of Shiretoko Mountain Range.  I have been here twice, once in the summer when ground path was closed due to bear sighting and once in early October where the ground path around the lakes were open to walk.  Unfortunately, the weather was nicer when the ground path was closed, so I only got to visit the first lake that summer day.

More from this photo tour of Japan is coming soon!  Here is the list of the places we visited and photographed in Japan.

• Shiretoko Five Lakes – You are here!
• Shiretoko Pass
• Utoro Sunsets
• Furepe Waterfall
• Oshinkoshin Waterfall
• Lake Akan
• Lake Mashu
• Lake Onneto
• Sounkyo Onsen
• Kamikawa Angus Farm
• Ginga Waterfall
• Lake Daisetsuko
• Sounkyo Ropeway
• Oobako
• Blue Pond (Aoi Ikke)
• Shirogane Falls
• Moss Garden Temple (Kokedera)
• Bamboo Forrest in Arashiyama
• Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji)
• Nanzenji
• Fushimi Inari Shrine
• Portrait session with models in kimonos

Interested in your own custom photo tour and experiences in Japan?  Contact Japan Photo Guide today to start your adventure!

13 Day Photo Tour of Japan | My Lovely Couple from Turkey

One of the best parts about leading photo tours in Japan is meeting and developing relationships with my fellow travelers in Japan. Part of the experience that I offer with Japan Photo Guide is to help document your trip to Japan. Of course you will be taking lot’s of photos of Japan, but I think it is important that I take photos of you as you are experiencing Japan. Look through your previous travel photos and I’m sure you will notice the amount of photos of the entire group together is few and far between. The times when you do have travel photos of everyone, you are usually asking the waiter or some random stranger to take a photo, which might not come out so great! As a professional photographer, while traveling around Japan as a guide, it is always a pleasure to take photos of everyone with me… Especially when I get comments like this:

“All of them are great! Thank you very very much Evan! :) We visited Japan with you again :) You made our day thank you. Those are wonderfull memories.”

Check out the rest of my favorite photos of this lovely couple experiencing Japan for the first time and from my most recent Japan Photo Guide trip to Japan:

13 Day Photo Tour of Japan | Street Photography in Japan

In November I was lucky enough to lead another private photography tour of Japan.  This time, I was with a couple from Turkey, Kurt and Serap, who had always dreamed of coming to Japan.  After learning a little more about them, their interests and reasons for wanting to visit Japan, I planned a 13 day photo tour of Japan creating experiences that I know we will always remember!  This guided tour of Japan included Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Nara, Arashiyama, Hiroshima, Miyajima and Koyasan.  We certainly visited a lot of places in Japan in a short amount of time, but Japan’s awesome (and complex) network of public transportation, mainly trains, makes traveling around Japan convenient, fun and scenic… assuming you know which trains to take!

As you can imagine, a 13 day tour of Japan certain calls for a few blog posts, so I decided to break it down in a few different parts.  Both Kurt and Serap are really into street photography (I can’t wait to show you a few of their awesome photos from Japan) so I wanted to share a few of my own from the tour around Japan.  Street photography is a fairly broad term and in a city like Tokyo, where there is so much going visually, it can be overwhelming to take photos or even decide what to focus on.  I recommend having a purpose or goal when photographing around Tokyo to avoid being overwhelmed by all the visual stimulation.  My goal, in regards to street photography on this photo tour of Japan, was to leave as much of “the story” up to the viewer’s imagination as possible.  Which is why in almost all of these photos you won’t see faces and usually people cut in half.  Another important aspect to street photography is patience.  I recommend finding a place you like, for example these awesome blue stairs, and waiting for the moment to come to you!

Here are a few more of my favorite photos from my latest photography tour in Japan (although there are many more coming soon):

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