Greetings, all.
It's been a while since I've posted anything as I've been super busy setting up my website and shop *cough link in my bio shameless plug* *cough* .
Anyway, I took a day off from pulling out my hair in front of my computer screen to go out and enjoy the summer flowers in Tokyo. The hydrangea are the most famous summer flower around here, but in my first 4 years here, I haven't bothered photographing them. For years the chaos of each bunch of flowers kept me from photographing them, as I typically do close up shots of flowers, and I've never found them all that compelling.
However, this year, I caught wind of the perfect location to photograph the flowers with the sunset and Tokyo Skytree in the distance. There were only two problems, the first being the lack of sunsets in summer, and the second being the popularity of this particular location this year. Luckily, this year's rainy season has been oddly sunny, so that wasn't a problem. However, as I arrived to the location found there was only one composition from the side of the river I was standing on. This just so happened to be the same composition every other photographer uses. I noticed there were some bushes on the other side of the river, so I decided to cross the nearest bridge and take a look. To my surprise not only was there a unique composition, but it was actually better than the everyone else uses.
So, I set up my camera, and waited for the sun to set. Just as it was setting it broke through a part of the clouds and struck the hydrangea right in front of me and that's when I knew I had something not only unique, but special.
Anyway, all of this is to say, even if you're in a popular location shot by hundreds, challenge yourself not to go with the easy shot. Look around, and you might find something unique. Admittedly, from a technical standpoint, this image isn't flawless (focus staking it was incredibly tedious), however I feel it perfectly captures the essence of summer here in Tokyo, along with the combination of nature and human made beauty.
Hi Jordan, really nice image. I appreciate that you took the time for search for a new perspective, this certainly paid off.
I also checked out your new website - very impressive. I see you are using Squarespace - what template did you use?
I’m glad you like the image!
As for my website, I’m using the Wexley template. I just changed it to a darker theme and added a front page with a rolling slideshow. My main problem with squarespace was that it seemed like everyone’s photography page looked exactly the same, which is why I went with a darker theme.
I was going to go with Wix, but their builder seemed slow and cumbersome.
Well done Jordan it looks awful purdy.... lol i thought you'd enjoy some mid U.S. jargon as im sure you miss home or maybe not, Japan seems pretty awesome. You are getting incredible shots over there and by the way all the rain you are presumably supposed to be getting is on this side of the world soooo....lucky us.
Well, I’m not sure how much US jargon we use in Canada, haha. Japan is great, but the weather isn’t super interesting, in terms of dramatic skies. Luckily the nature and infrastructure makes up for it.
Well, it seems the weather is going to take a turn for the worse here, in the coming days/weeks... just when I decided to take time off for Milky Way photography, the bad weather rolls in... for the 3rd year in a row.
Haha forgot you were from Canadia lol, i was thinking you grew up in like Ohio or something. Sounds like you need to make new plans hahaha. How far are you from dark sky?
Well, I live just south of Tokyo, so pretty far.
In japan there are only a handful of areas you can photograph the Milky Way, and even fewer with compelling landscapes for it to compliment. There are 3 that I know of, all of which are about 2-3 hours from my house, but only one has a useable landscape, but suffers from mild light pollution.
That’s not too bad until you add the baby into the equation lol get your mom to come back out and babysit lol