This year after completing my annual cross country Essence of Autumn Leaves photography workshop tour, I am leading a private Japan photo tour to locations across Japan, and today my participants and I are visiting Hirosaki Castle in Aomori Prefecture.  Hirosaki Castle has a history dating back to the Sengoku period of Japan, with the Battle of Sekigahara and Tokugawa Ieyasu giving Tsugaru Tamenobu possession of the castle and an income for his service.  Construction of the ..read more

Presently, I’m in the field for my annual Japan Autumn Leaves Essence of Japan photo workshop tour.  I’m exploring a region that I took the opportunity to finish scouting during the pandemic.  As an amateur historian, I have always been fascinated by Samurai lore, and one place that I often heard mentioned was Akiyamago with the word ronin.  Ronin simply means a masterless Samurai, in most cases after a lost battle, samurai from the losing side had three choices. One ..read more

 For over 25 years, I have been leading Mt. Fuji Photography tours in the valley of the dragons.  Shinto priests, who are now some of my closest friends, have guided me along the ancient pilgrim's routes around Mount Fuji, routes that hold several ancient shrines and temples and that are said to be the primary power points around Fujisan.  I  The Mt. Fuji part of our Japan photo workshop begins right away for golden hour photography with Japan’s most sacred ..read more

Currently I am leading an extension of my annual Essence of Autumn Japan photo tour.  This year due to an unusually warm autumn I chose to travel north along the sea of Japan with participants who opted for the extension.   The past couple of days we have been photographing in the Senami sasagawanagare Awashima national park.  The park is 90 square kilometers of space and takes up a substantial amount of Niigata coastline.  The region was first declared a national park in ..read more

Currently, I am leading my Essence of Autumn photography workshop.  This morning, we woke up well before sunrise in the blue hour at our exclusive highlands resort in Niigata.  We headed for the highlands of Minamiuonuma to photograph the sea of clouds, also known as the sea of fog, or in Japanese 雲海, ‘Unkai’.  Certain regions of Japan have unique geographic and weather conditions which allow the sea of clouds to form on and over land, giving the impression of Nirvana ..read more

I’m currently leading my annual Essence of Autumn leaves photo tour.  As is my habit, I’m leading my group away from tourist pollution way off the beaten path.   We are currently still in Niigata, and participants, my team, and I are enjoying a beautiful golden hour, and what appears to be rice terraces are actually koi ponds.  Yes, you heard me correctly, koi ponds in the highlands.  These ponds are actually placed there for koi ..read more

Recently I was inspired to write this newsletter/short article by visual artists/photographers Olivier Nelis and Ånne-Mårìe’ social media post; they are clients who will join my annual winter Hokkaido photo tour.  Olivier and Ann-Marie visited Japan during the summer, and they visited Japan properly, as their itinerary included visiting dozens of must see spots throughout Japan.  One of their stops was at Japan’s largest Cemetery “Okunoin Cemetery ..read more

 Japan Cherry Blossom Photo Tours are different every year, and each year I lead a cross country cherry blossom viewing experience to allow for variations in sakura blooms.  Japanese sakura, or cherry blossoms flourish at different times depending on which region of Japan you are visiting because Japan is latitudinally long at over 3,000 kilometers and has 6,852 islands, and each island and specific location has individual characteristics that occur only in that region, so photo tours ..read more

Proving the saying ‘Good things come in small packages’ is a sighting of a Shima Enaga during my annual Hokkaido birding photography workshop. Winter during my annual group Hokkaido photo tour is the best time to photograph the Shima Enaga; they are so sweet they look like bouncing miniature snowballs, and their face is as white as a cotton ball.  They are also known as the silver-throated tit or silver-throated dasher. They are a tiny bird (at 12-16 cm in length, including ..read more

Before I give you inside info about what a blissful Authentic Japan Cherry Blossom Photo Tour is, let me start with a ‘wake up call’ and explain what over 98% of visitors will experience when they descend on Japan to experience the Japan spring cherry blossom season.  Millions upon millions of tourists flock to Japan in anticipation to discover the perfect cherry blossom and believe they are going to fully experience the untold hidden stories of Authentic Japan.  This is ..read more