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Musashi Sakazaki's picture

Starry Mt. Fuji

Hi Everyone, I'm new to the fstoppers site, but have been watching on YT for several months. I'm an American living in Japan, and just got into photography about a year ago. Anyhoo, a couple days ago, I rented a car and drove to Yamanashi Prefecture, near Mt. Fuji. I was hoping to emulate one Elia Locardi's photos, except his was in spring with cherry blossoms, I was thinking of getting autumn leaves. I didn't know it, but actually the leaves had already fallen! However, I was still able to get some nice night shots while I was there.

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12 Comments

Love this..is this Kyomizu-dera?

No, actually this is a place called Arakura Sengen in Yamanashi Japan. Kiyomizudera is in Kyoto.

In some ways I find the out of focus dots of colour, distracting. But then I try to imagine how it would look without them, and I think it might have been a bit dull and 2D. The coposition looks just a bit wrong. I think more space to the left would have been better. However, i don't know if there was a power pylon or some other problem there. Also I think a bit more detail in the shaddow on the lower part of the building's roofs, would have been nice. Nice try.

Thank you! Have you seen the photo by Elia Locardi that I mentioned?

I appreciate your feedback! Taking another look at Elia Locardi's picture, he did all the things you mentioned much better. I'll have to try again I guess. Thanks again!

It is quite some time since I saw Elia Locardi's photograph, so I did not recall any details. I have just checked out his site where ther are two versions. He has done a great job in both cases, very much in his style. Of course, he did not shoot it at night, so he will obviously have produced a very different look to the one you have shown us. I do think his composition is better though so perhapse you could take a copy in some form to guide your composition if you do a reshoot. Critical to his composition is the fact he used a rather wider lens than you used, so he gets in more height as well as more width.

I think you can do a great job of this shot and have done well with this attempt.

Great pic! Don't know the original but this is great!

Thank you! Elia Locardi's picture is much better than mine! You can find him here on fstoppers.

I like the composition. Has several points of interest, but somehow they work.

Thank you!

Sakazaki-san,
A wonderfull capture...congrats! The bokeh of the midground appears as if in the foreground. Cool effect. Is this a composite?
Two comments / suggestions. One is to remove the bokeh lights on the far right boarder as they distract the eye a bit. The second is I think a darker blue sky will set off the midground lights even more. just my personal opinion.
Thanks for sharing,
Mike

Thank you! It's not a composite. It's a 1-minute exposure, and for the last 3 seconds or so, I threw it out of focus for this effect. Thank you for your feedback! I'll keep it in mind when I re-edit.