A sixteen-entry photographic journal of my trip to Japan in 2025.
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Tokyo Skytree
We’re going to open our series on Japan with images of the Tokyo Skytree, the tallest freestanding tower in the world at 2,080′ (634m). It stood only 1 km away from my hotel in Asakusa, so I had ample opportunities to photograph it over my eight days in Tokyo. The image above obviously exploited a continue reading
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A Sprinkling of Shibuya
The image above was taken about half a block from Tokyo’s famous Shibuya Crossing—also known as the Shibuya Scramble—the busiest pedestrian crossing on the planet. Diving in to the experience without hesitation, I ended up there on my first full day in Japan, which happened to be a Saturday. Being a Saturday, it wasn’t going continue reading
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Kamakura Temples
Kamakura is a pretty city in Kanagawa prefecture south of Tokyo. It has some notable temples, including Hasedera and Kotoku-in. All but one of the images in this post were taken on the grounds of the former. The original Hasedera temple dates back to the 8th century, although the building above has been rebuilt more continue reading
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Urban Solitude
Before my trip to Japan, I decided that it would be fun to sign up for a short photography tour. In the end, I chose the Tokyo Vertigo tour by Eyexplore. It was very convenient—available pretty much any night—and was already a private tour so I was able to bring my daughter along, too, for continue reading
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Urban Skylines
This week wraps up my recap from my Tokyo Vertigo tour with Eyexplore. This set of images concentrates more on views out over the city. City skylines usually look pretty at night, especially from a distance. Since most of my vantage points were not particularly high, these images tend to have shorter buildings in the continue reading
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Sumida Reflections
Back in Tokyo after spending the day down in Kamakura (discussed in this post) I had nothing on my agenda for the evening, so I went for a walk along the Sumida River. I mostly used my fast 85mm, in part because it had a deep lens hood and it was raining. Besides that handy continue reading
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Golden Turd
It didn’t take long for my daughter and I to notice the weird giant yellow thing across the river near our hotel in Asakusa. “What is that?” I asked. She looked on her phone for a minute and then laughed. “Oh,” she said, “it’s the ‘Asahi Flame’, but the locals call it ‘The Golden Turd’”. continue reading
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Among the Skyscrapers
Lots of my friends have never been to Tokyo, so naturally they ask me what I thought. A week in Tokyo hardly makes me an expert, but is long enough to have formed some lasting impressions. One general comment is that Tokyo is not a tall city. Tokyo feels more like a five- or six-story continue reading
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Dilapidation, Tokyo-Style
Tokyo is truly massive. It would take ten more visits and some real dedication before I became at all suspicious of having walked 0.01% of its streets, so there is nothing definitive or comprehensive about any impressions of the city I might have. That disclaimer aside, like any city there are nice areas and not-so-nice continue reading
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Urban Abstracts
Before the blog moves on from Tokyo, I wanted to share some images that are a of a more abstract flavor. It’s fun to exploit buildings with lots of glass, like in the image above, where the left half of the image is filled with reflections of the right half. At this point, four months continue reading
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Autumn in Morioka
Morioka is a little over 300 miles north of Tokyo. My daughter and I only ended up staying there because we had a one-night gap to fill between our hotel in Tokyo and our hotel in Aomori even further north. So, it was essentially a layover in our shinkansen (bullet train) journey and we spent continue reading
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Torii! Torii! Torii!
Takayama Inari Shrine, and its senbon torii (thousand torii), are decidedly not easy to get to without a car: three buses, a long walk, and about two-and-a-half hours later we were exploring the grounds. The “thousand” torii is symbolic, rounded up from the just over 200 torii that are actually there. Regardless, they are striking continue reading
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Stormclouds over Aomori
As I mentioned in the previous post, Aomori Prefecture is the northernmost prefecture on Japan’s main island of Honshu. The city of Aomori itself averages 26 feet of snow annually, more than any city in the world. I visited in November, and December–February turned out to be one of the snowiest in decades. It would continue reading
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Rural Aomori
There is always a big difference between urban and rural areas, but certainly in Japan, where Tokyo is on one side of the comparison, the difference is pretty extreme. I enjoyed seeing the this row of giant radishes hanging from a pole, which is definitely not something you would find in Shinjuku City. I’m not continue reading
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Shosenkyo Gorge
My last full day in Japan was spent in the city of Kofu in Yamanashi Prefecture, west of Tokyo, and my daughter was back to work that day so I was on my own. I decided to take a 40-minute bus ride out to Shosenkyo Gorge. I knew that the bus left from bus stand continue reading