Mt. Tsukuba is a sacred mountain and a popular day-trip destination located in Tsukuba city, Ibaraki Prefecture, next to Tokyo. If you crave to be surrounded by lush greenery and don't mind a relatively steep uphill hike, it's one of the best mountain destinations one can have without having to spend the night outside the city.
It has now been well over two weeks since I picked up the Ricoh GR III, and I've been using it daily since then. During these two weeks, it has joined me out on the streets of Tokyo, to a few smaller hikes and day-trips in the outskirts of the city, as well as on a three day trip to the Izu peninsula, where some of the earliest cherry blossoms were in full bloom. While two weeks is by no means enough to fully get to know a camera, it is enough to get a solid understanding of whether or not it will warrant a permanent place in my bag or not.
It’s been a long time since I last used a premium compact camera. Up until two years ago, I had a Sony RX1, which I have reviewed elsewhere on this site. Since I traded it in to help finance a lens purchase, I’ve been relying on my smartphone on those, albeit rare, occasions when I’ve left home without any of my bigger cameras. But, I’ve been eying the Ricoh GR 3 since it was first announced. Today, after stumbling across a used one for a reasonable price, I decided to take the plunge. A more comprehensive review will follow later, but for now, here are my first impressions, after using it for a day here in Tokyo.
Even though Nikon has been the company in charge of creating my workhouse cameras for the last 12 years or so, I've had another camera maker as my favourite when it comes to my own, personal photography. From the X-E1 to the X-T20, the X-Pro 2 I picked up a Fujifilm X-T3 at the end of 2018. After having it as my companion to most of the private trips I have made since then, as well as countless casual walks around Tokyo, I have finally gotten around to share my thoughts about this camera with the rest of the world.
As a photographer living in Tokyo, I often crave a bit of fresh air and new surroundings. Fortunately, there’s an abundance of day trip destinations near the worlds biggest city. This is a list of some of the best day trips a photographer can take from Tokyo, all reachable within two hours or less from the Japanese capital.
Mt. Fuji, Kamakura, Takao-san, Enoshima. There’s no shortage of worthwhile day trip destinations one can do from Tokyo. As someone fortunate enough to explore Japan, and getting paid while doing so, I’ve written countless articles on the subject, including a few here on my own website as well. However, this piece will be somewhat different…
A while ago I needed a speedy camera for a pretty interesting job. I ended up picking up a used Nikon D500 that I found in pristine condition, offered at a price that I couldn’t resist. The day after the assignment I went to Hawaii with my wife and decided to only pack the D500, to further familiarize myself with Nikon’s flagship APS-C camera and to decide if it was worthy of a permanent place in my camera bag.
It's now been a year since I picked up the mirrorless Nikon Z7. Since then, the camera has joined me to numerous assignments -- Travels all over Japan, Shooting deep underground at a construction site and of course, countless portrait sessions. Here are my thoughts on Nikon's first steps into the high-end mirrorless world.
A few weeks ago I was hired by a client to document the celebration of Seijin no Hi, or “Coming of Age Day”, of her daughter. This is a holiday held in January every year, where everyone who turns 20 years old in the coming year dresses up in traditional attire and celebrate at their local city hall, as well as with friends and family elsewhere.
While it wasn't really on my radar when I started doing portrait photography photoshoots here in Tokyo, portraits at night have almost unconsciously turned into my special skill. As a photographer, I really enjoy being able to use all the colourful lights in Tokyo at night to light up my subjects. It's a different kind of challenge, but one that is so rewarding once pulled off correctly and is used to create outstanding portrait photographs. And my clients seem to enjoy it a lot too – these days many people specifically contact me and request a booking at night, either because they found my website or my portrait only Instagram account, where there are plenty of samples of my nighttime portraits from the streets of Tokyo.
Korakuen (後楽園, Kōrakuen) is one of the most beautiful gardens in Japan. And that’s not just my personal opinion - this garden is in fact listed as one of the “The Three Great Gardens of Japan” (日本三名園 Nihon Sanmeien). The park is located in central Okayama, a major city in western Japan, situated between Osaka and Hiroshima.
Mt. Takao, or Takao-san in Japanese, is probably the most popular mountain in Japan after Mt. Fuji, at least in terms of visitor numbers. This mountain and its many hiking trails make for a great day trip to anyone who gets an urge to escape the hustle and bustle of downtown Tokyo. In less than an hour from Shinjuku station, you can be surrounded by lush forests and beautiful scenery.
Tokyo and its surroundings are often classified as the world's largest metropolitan area. The population of what is known as the Greater Tokyo Area today (2019) amounts to about 38 million people sharing on an area about the size of Los Angeles County in the US or Skåne County in Sweden. What is really included in this area, however, is quite fluid depending on who you ask.
Are you trying to figure out where to stay in Tokyo? There's no simple answer to that question that applies to everyone. In this article, I'm listing ten of the most well-known districts and give my thoughts on the pros and cons of each of them. After reading this, you will hopefully have a clearer idea of what area will fulfil your needs the best.
What's the weather like in Tokyo? When is the best time to visit? Are the winters cold in Tokyo? Does it ever snow there? These are examples of question that I get all the time, so I figured the best way to answer it is in the future is to explain everything in a long blog post.
If you're looking for the tl;dr version it is this:
Tokyo is a destination worth visiting all year round except possibly during the summers, from late July until late September, while it is uncomfortably hot and humid.
For those of you who want to know the full story, let me guide you through all four (or should it be five?) seasons and what they have to offer.
