Japan Photo Guide

This is the second of two posts on climbing Mount Fuji with this one giving you the positive side. Super excited about climbing Fuji? You may want to check out the other version here.

This post was written by Greg Logan. In addition all photos were taken by Greg. Greg’s blog can be found here.

Before I go on to tell you that climbing Fuji will make you three inches taller, will give you a full head of hair and put ten years on your life, I feel obligated to point out that a certain photographer/blogger/climber/whiner never actually made it to the summit of the mountain and therefore, in my opinion, lacks the steely resolve and mental fortitude to make a sound judgment on the merits of completing the ascent. And frankly, I don’t know if he would have appreciated the sunrise at the top with all those tears in his eyes.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to brass tacks: Should you or shouldn’t you climb Mount Fuji?

Is it exhausting? Yep. Is it crowded? Oh lord yes. Is it freezing on top? You’d better believe it. Is it worth it? Hell yes!

First of all, if you do not know what geisha or maiko are, check out my previous post about geisha and maiko.

One of the most popular questions I get from tourists and photographers alike is, “Where can I see geisha?” There are two very big misconceptions about geisha, the first being that geisha are prostitutes and second is that geisha can be seen commonly all over Japan. Both of these are false. Actually, it is very rare that you will see a geisha in Japan. That being said I am going to give you the easiest way to find them; HOWEVER, even if you take my advice, there is still a chance you might be unsuccessful! I am not guaranteeing you will see geisha or maiko here, but from my experience, the odds are pretty good!

Details after the jump! See more photos and read the rest of this entry »

Seeing how it is now the middle of winter for us northern hemisphere people, I thought I should give a little advice on photography in the winter…actually to be more specific I wanna talk about camera care during the winter. Taking some precautions to take care of your camera in the winter is very important and a few simple things can keep you from causing serious–and sometimes permanent– damage to your camera.

The first thing you should be aware of is that cold weather will reduce your battery life (sometimes drastically), so not only should you have a spare battery but you may want to carry your battery charger with you at all times when traveling. Nothing is more frustrating than missing a great shot because the batteries are dead! Another type about battery life, if you know you will not be using your camera for an extended period of time (while you are sleeping for example) take your batteries out of your camera because even if your camera is turned off, the contact in the camera will slowly but surely drain your batteries!

While having dead batteries is annoying, a more serious problem is condensation. This could happen when you come inside to a heated room after you have been outside in cold weather. There are a couple of things you can do to help reduce the chances of this happening. Put your camera in a zip lock plastic bag before going inside to help prevent condensation from forming inside your camera (instead, condensation might form on the bag itself). Another way to prevent condensation is to bring the camera into a room that does not have heating first and let it adjust to that temperature so there is not such a drastic change in temperature. If you have a reason to believe that condensation has formed in your camera, take out the battery and memory card and leave the doors to your camera open to let it dry out.

When leaving a hot room to go outside into the cold, there isn’t as much to worry about, but you still need to be careful of condensation or water. If there is condensation in your camera and you go outside to very cold weather, if this condensation freezes it will result in permanent damage and most likely the use of some 4 letter words.

Those are pretty much the main things to consider while doing winter photography, but if anyone else has some tips please leave a comment!

Wanna see the other photography tips and tricks?

This may seem obvious but I see it many times with travel snap shots…especially when I ask some stranger to take a photo of me at (insert famous place here). Pay attention to what is in your frame and don’t crop off half of somebody’s body, or somebody’s feet. Of course there are sometimes when you may want to do this because there is no other way to make the photograph work, but a lot of times body parts are cropped out of the frame for no other reason other than laziness. Take a look at the photos below. Both times there is plenty of space at the top of the frame so my feet could have easily not been cut off had the photographer paid attention.

My advice to you is… See more photos and read the rest of this entry »

This is a problem that we all encounter, you go to a place that is famous and because it is famous there are so many people, if you take a photo you are taking one of the people not the place you want to photograph. There are a couple of obvious things you do to get the photo. The first is just wait it out. Sometimes it just takes waiting for a minute or two for things to clear up, sometimes a little longer, but I find it usually takes less than 5 minutes for things to clear up in most cases. The second thing you can do is go early in the morning. This is good for two reasons, first because the earlier you go the less crowded it will be (because who really wants to wake up early) and maybe even more importatly the light is much better earlier in the morning than in the middle of the day. Another tip is use the people in your photographs. Sometimes the secret to a great landscape photograph is having that small person in the corner, or the couple holding hands. Don’t be afraid to use the people that are there! The mood of the photograph can change, for better or worse, so play around and don’t be afraid to use the people that are there! Look at the photographs below of garden at Nanzenji, Kyoto for an example.

As you can see, each photo have a different feel to it. Which one you prefer is up to you but one thing that is for certain is that you need a little patience as for both of these shots I had to wait for the decisive moment. The best advice I can give for this is to have your camera ready and just look through the lens until the time is right. The one on the bottom was harder to get because people were always walking by, if I had waited one more second there would have been somebody walking in my frame, so be ready!

See the rest of the Photography Travel Tips!