Samurai Shots

 Asakusa  浅草 Edo-era Tokyo meets modern tourism. Entrance to Sensoji temple also known as Sanja (Canon 50mm) It was one of those strange Autumn days where the sun was out and the temperature danced around a balmy 25 degrees and an early Autumn evening pleasantness.  Asakusa is photogenically appealing for many reasons. The magnificence of Sensoji temple and its surrounding grounds, the hustle and bustle of Nakamise shopping street, the narrow Shotengai (covered arcades) that snake out from the Sensoji area or the mass of people that converge on the area, many in kimonos or yukatas.  But it is not for the faint of heart. Crowds, some Japanese, but mostly tourists, cameras or phones in hand, snack on the overpriced street foods or wander the back streets in rented kimonos like never-relenting waves of a tsunami. One of the Nakamise shopping street owners replaces Kokeshi dolls. (CANON 50mm) The crowds of Nakamise (Canon 50mm)   Incense at Sanja temple (Canon 50mm)...

  "Photography is an austere and blazing poetry of the real." - Ansel Adams Photography is timeless. Catching a fleeting moment. Preserving it in time. Lightning in a bottle.  It may be an intimate moment between lovers. The timeless innocence of a child`s smile. The fragile power of nature. The achievements of man.  Photography is both personal and public. Subjective and objective. Full of colour or monochrome clarity. I have always felt an affinity to the siren`s call of creativity. Be it through the written word or the visual medium of film. The honesty and intimacy the creativity demands of you is unlike any other form of expression.  Both photography and my life in Japan were never long-term goals of mine. They just found me.  Japan is a place of contradictions, mystery and an ethereal blending of modernity and the natural world. As bamboo bends in the wind, so do the Japanese people, but never breaking as the rigidity and foundations of their culture hold ...