Friends in the weather business have recently been telling me that due to La Niña starting up again a little while ago, we could be in for a hard winter. I’ve experienced some great times here in Japan during winter. … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Blue Friday
In all the years I’ve been visiting and living in Tokyo, one thing is constant: I’ve not yet become bored with the city. I can probably put some of this down to the fact that I’m an inquisitive photographer. So, … Continue reading
Tokyo Skytree at Sunset
Yesterday looked like it might produce a lovely sunset and a views of Mount Fuji. The mountain never materialised but it was a beautiful sunset. I’d been out on Sunday, with some students, shooting the city with telephoto lenses. So … Continue reading
Walks with the camera: looking down
As a professional photographer, I constantly need to exercise my eyes to keep them fit for purpose. Some days I just go out and spend my time looking at the floor. My brain and eyes are like a radar set: … Continue reading
Revisiting good locations & the orange towel
Some places just keep drawing your back. Others end up being the sorts of places you just naturally gravitate back to or pass by now and then. The buildings near the bus depot between Shibuya and Ebisue are like that … Continue reading
Silhouettes in Asagaya
The big summer festival in Asagaya is one of those events in Tokyo that have me torn: do I go and brave the massive crowds? Or do I not go and then regret it? This year I went. Stuck around … Continue reading
Explaining how my eyes work
Part of the challenge of being a teacher of something is to pass on, in easy to understand terms, the things within your realm that are subconscious to you. Seeing, for instance. Why do I see the things I see, … Continue reading
Tohoku winter wonderland
At various times during the end of 2017 and through into January of last year, I was on a shoot for the JTB and Japan National Parks Authority. It gave me the chance to visit some truly breathtaking parts of … Continue reading
Evening falls in a Tokyo backstreet
The simple geometry and colour pairing in this quiet backstreet near Asakusabashi typifies why I like spending time with subjects like this. As a professional photographer who needs to deliver for whichever client comes through the door on a given … Continue reading
A wall that I love: Kinshicho
Kinshicho is a neighbourhood I first discovered about eight years ago. Recently, I’ve been walking there a lot. Tokyo has so many wonderful neighbourhoods to explore and because there are so many of them, one tends to explore them on … Continue reading
Last of the gingko: Shinagawa
Undoubtedly one of the great charms of Japan in autumn are the gingko trees. Above and beyond the majesty of a vast carpet of fallen, yellow leaves there is, for me, the exquisite beauty of the solitary leaf. In Shinagawa … Continue reading
Patterns in blue: Nihombashi
I love Tokyo’s winters: piercing blue skies, crisp cold air. But after a while the skies, what I’d call BBB (Blue But Boring), get a little un-interesting. Until, that is, you start using how the perfect flat blue reflects in … Continue reading
Perfect light on buildings, Asakusa
After my wife and I visited our local shrine to do ‘hatsumode’ 初詣 (the first visit of new year), I headed off for a walk. After walking pretty much the whole of the first station of the Old Tokaido Road, … Continue reading
Old and new, Shinjuku | 今昔、新宿
I was out in Shunjuku recently, doing a lesson for a student. The area by the West exit of the JR station, where the skyscrapers are concentrated, is always a favourite place for me to walk. I’ll often do that … Continue reading
Bringing in the catch: trawler off the coast of Numazu, Japan
Shot this one a month or so ago, on a day out with the family down around the coast near Numazu. Hasselblad H4D-40 HC 300mm f/4.5
Suburban Girl | Yumi Glams-Up Yashio
As a foreigner in Japan, I get stared at: often. It doesn’t bother me at all. So it doesn’t really bother me to go the next step and do stuff that might get me stared at even back in my … Continue reading
Summer in Tokyo | Mother and daughter, Akihabara
Was digging through my back-catalogue today: this one is from 2010. In fact, two years ago exactly. I remember it being a viciously hot day. The weather at the moment is cooking up pretty good. Not a big fan of … Continue reading
Holy Waters | Asakusa, Tokyo
I spent a few hours out shooting with a French guy whose in Japan for a while on holiday. He had a few things he wanted to improve with his photography, namely ‘seeing’. We spent 15 or 20mins around this … Continue reading
Two Wrecks, One Beauty | Yumi in Yashio
Seeing a recent picture of Kate Moss shot in really brutal HDR made me wonder about shooting models like that. I didn’t actually do this HDR but it’s sort of processed a little to look like that, with the structure … Continue reading
People I See in Tokyo: The Policeman & His Chin
Shot in late April 2012 If you’ve ever heard of Jimmy Hill then you’ll see this photo and probably think of him: I bet you…. Shot this in Yanaka a month or six weeks ago. Was shooting someone else but … Continue reading
People I See in Tokyo: Mondrian Girl
Shot in late May 2012 Okachimachi, where I shot this, is a favourite part of Tokyo for me. One of the first areas of town I shot in, about 13 years ago, and still as interesting now as then. This … Continue reading
Kōmyō-ji Temple, Kamakura, in infra-red
Shot sometime in late April 2012 Digging out a few files from the past month/six weeks and this one was shot whilst I was doing a photo-tour for a lady in town from Singapore. We’d followed a favourite route of … Continue reading
Cheeky Kids
Shot 23rd May 2012 A quick from-the-hip shot of my two eldest a few weeks back: we were coming home from a walk and some food somewhere across town. Ami looking typically cheeky. Good example of how to use the … Continue reading
Rainy Season Comes to Japan | Shooting Tokyo in the Rain
Shot 3rd May 2012 One from a day out in the rain last week when I was with a couple in town from Singapore who were keen to photograph around Tokyo and learn more about their cameras. Shot in Ameyokocho. … Continue reading
Ameyokocho, Tokyo | Walking Home in the Rain
Shot 27th April 2012 Last one of my rain shots from yesterday, for now anyway. I have some editing to do for clients and a slideshow to build for +Shinyong Lee , of the shots we did in the studio … Continue reading
Tokyo In The Rain | Waiting to Cross
Shot 27th April 2012 Another one from yesterday, shot in Okachimachi as I was heading home. Great place to shoot and one of the first places in Tokyo I shot street, all the way back in 2000. Great light, lots … Continue reading
When Bokeh Is The Only Way
Shot 27th April 2012 The fad for bokeh [the out of focus-ness] has its ups and downs. For some it’s pointing the camera at the nearest christmas tree or set of traffic lights and de-focusing the lens. Fine, if that … Continue reading
Tokyo Street Photography With Flash
Shot 26th April 2012 Getting close and shooting with a flash in the street is probably something I would never have done had three things not occured in my life: 1. Making friends with Charlie Kirk some years ago in … Continue reading
Discarded Umbrella & The Last of the Sakura
Shot 24th April 2012 Keen to experiment with my new/old lens today [the 55mm Takumar f/1.8 Pentax lens on my Nikon], I was a bit like a kid in a sweet-shop around our neighbourhood where the last of the late-flowering … Continue reading
The 2000Yen Lens: First Shot
I’d had a dentist appointment this afternoon and needed a bit of value-for-money retail therapy so I headed to my local camera shop. I couldn’t have a better guy in my neighbourhood than the camera shop owner. I have known … Continue reading