13 Day Photo Tour of Japan | My Lovely Couple from Turkey

One of the best parts about leading photo tours in Japan is meeting and developing relationships with my fellow travelers in Japan. Part of the experience that I offer with Japan Photo Guide is to help document your trip to Japan. Of course you will be taking lot’s of photos of Japan, but I think it is important that I take photos of you as you are experiencing Japan. Look through your previous travel photos and I’m sure you will notice the amount of photos of the entire group together is few and far between. The times when you do have travel photos of everyone, you are usually asking the waiter or some random stranger to take a photo, which might not come out so great! As a professional photographer, while traveling around Japan as a guide, it is always a pleasure to take photos of everyone with me… Especially when I get comments like this:

“All of them are great! Thank you very very much Evan! :) We visited Japan with you again :) You made our day thank you. Those are wonderfull memories.”

Check out the rest of my favorite photos of this lovely couple experiencing Japan for the first time and from my most recent Japan Photo Guide trip to Japan:

13 Day Photo Tour of Japan | Street Photography in Japan

In November I was lucky enough to lead another private photography tour of Japan.  This time, I was with a couple from Turkey, Kurt and Serap, who had always dreamed of coming to Japan.  After learning a little more about them, their interests and reasons for wanting to visit Japan, I planned a 13 day photo tour of Japan creating experiences that I know we will always remember!  This guided tour of Japan included Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Nara, Arashiyama, Hiroshima, Miyajima and Koyasan.  We certainly visited a lot of places in Japan in a short amount of time, but Japan’s awesome (and complex) network of public transportation, mainly trains, makes traveling around Japan convenient, fun and scenic… assuming you know which trains to take!

As you can imagine, a 13 day tour of Japan certain calls for a few blog posts, so I decided to break it down in a few different parts.  Both Kurt and Serap are really into street photography (I can’t wait to show you a few of their awesome photos from Japan) so I wanted to share a few of my own from the tour around Japan.  Street photography is a fairly broad term and in a city like Tokyo, where there is so much going visually, it can be overwhelming to take photos or even decide what to focus on.  I recommend having a purpose or goal when photographing around Tokyo to avoid being overwhelmed by all the visual stimulation.  My goal, in regards to street photography on this photo tour of Japan, was to leave as much of “the story” up to the viewer’s imagination as possible.  Which is why in almost all of these photos you won’t see faces and usually people cut in half.  Another important aspect to street photography is patience.  I recommend finding a place you like, for example these awesome blue stairs, and waiting for the moment to come to you!

Here are a few more of my favorite photos from my latest photography tour in Japan (although there are many more coming soon):

Japan Photo Guide Fall 2011

Just returned from an incredible 2 week photography tour in Japan with a wonderful couple from Turkey!  As you can imagine, after touring Japan for 2 weeks, I have quite a few photos to go through, but I wanted to just post a two photos real quick!  A lot more photos of our trip in Japan, which included Tokyo, Hakone, Kawaguchiko, Kyoto, Nara, Arashiyama, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Nara and Koyasan.  Whew!  And for those of you that are thinking about going to Japan for the 2012 cherry blossom season, check out my 2012 Japan Photo Guide Cherry Blossom Group Tour!

Yes, It is safe to visit (most places in) Japan!

Northern Japan is still, and will still be, devastated for a long time, but now is as good as time as any to visit Japan!  From Tokyo down to Okinawa, life is back to normal and is safe to travel to.  There are two great reasons why now is the perfect time to plan a trip to Japan.  The first is that Japan’s economy needs our help.  Tourism, and just about every part of Japan’s economy, has already taken a huge hit this year, but the more visitors that travel to Japan, the better.  The second is really the same reason, the fact that tourism is down in Japan means that I can give you a guided tour of Japan, visit the best places in Japan and do so with the lowest crowds possible!  Why not take a guided tour of Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima and/or Miyajima when Japan needs our help and at a time when crowds will be much lower than normal?  Interested in having me be your private tour guide of Japan?  Check out the general information about my tours of Japan or what to expect during a guided tour of Japan.  Don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions!