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2018 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan | Japanese Snow Monkeys
Apr 16 | Evan | No Comments |
Along with Chris Weston, I escorted a small group of wildlife photographers in Japan in search of Japan’s Winter Wildlife. View the 2018 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan Trip Report to see photos of Japanese Snow Monkeys, Red Crowned Crane, Swan, Steller’s Sea Eagles and whatever else we could find! I’ve already posted about the other Winter Wildlife so this post of the Japanese Snow Monkeys is the last of the 2018 Winter Wildlife tour of Japan.
Japanese Snow Monkeys. Having spent more than 10 days with them from my combined tours of Japan, I’ not sure what else I can say about them. Even with spending that many days with the Japanese Snow Monkeys, I still love observing and photographing them.
The walk to get there is a little long (30-40 minutes on narrow and snowy/icy path) but it’s worth it. After spending just a little time with the monkeys, it’s hard not to smile and enjoy the time with our distant relatives! I’m already looking forward to the 2019 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan so I can go back and see the Japanese Snow Monkeys!
Winter Photo Tour of Japan | Snow Monkeys!
May 12 | Evan | No Comments |
Located in Nagano Prefecture, the Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park in Yamanouchi has become a very popular place for tourists visiting Japan to include on their Japan tour itinerary. If you google snow monkey Japan, you will find all sorts of articles and a few videos and then if you go to the images section of google, your heart will possibly melt from all the cute photos of these monkeys trying to stay warm during Winter in Japan!
While the snow monkey park is manmade, the surrounding mountains are the monkeys natural habitat and you can usually position yourself to so it’s not obvious you are in a park. The crowds of people have been increasing though, so sometimes it’s harder to avoid other humans in the photos with monkeys! Although, the other humans sometimes provide some interesting photo opportunities as well, like this guy who thought it was a good idea to get close to the monkey here:
It’s almost a perfect comic strip as the monkey’s reaction went from “What are you looking at?” to “Go away” to laughing to himself over how scared the human was! Besides taking photos here I really enjoyed just observing the monkeys in the Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park…
I saw many characteristics displayed by the monkeys that appeared to be similar to humans, for example, love (grooming, taking care of, hugging and a little more… intimate), curiosity (one baby monkey untied a person’s shoes for example), bullying (one monkey launched a surprise attack on another) and of course, the natural desire we have to get warm when it’s cold. The peak season to visit the monkey park in Jigokudani is February as that’s when Yamanouchi tends to be the coldest and gets the most snow. I went just at the beginning of March and the path still had quite a bit of snow/ice and the snow monkey park had some snow but you can see that it wasn’t covered in snow. The snow monkey park may not be great for everyone visiting Japan, but as it can be done as a day trip from Tokyo, it certainly makes for a nice an unique opportunity to take photos in Japan! Below are a few more photos of the snow monkeys in Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park.
Interested in visiting Japan and the snow monkey park with me? Go ahead and contact me to get your escorted trip to Japan or photography tour of Japan started! Also, Japan Photo Guide is partnering with Magic Is Photo Tours for a 2017 Winter Photography Tour of Japan. At the time of this post, there are only 4 spots left for that trip!
Panoramic Kamikochi Photos
Jun 02 | Evan | No Comments |
Just a quick post today, again from Kamikochi. After sharing my favorite black and white photos from Kamikochi, here are my favorite panoramic photos of Kamikochi. All of these photos were simply taken with the iPhone camera’s panoramic photo tool and just cropped a little in photoshop. If you have been looking around the blog recently, you will recognize places like Myojin Pond, Kappabashi and Taisho Pond, and if you have been looking around Japan Photo Guide recently, posts from May would be a good place to see more photos from Kamikochi!
Kamikochi in black and white
May 25 | Evan | No Comments |From Myonjin Pond to Taisho Pond and all the wonderful places in between, it’s no secret I love Kamikochi! I only wish I could have spent more time in this special place in the Japanese Alps to take more photographs and really explore the area. I would have also been really happy with different kinds of weather, instead of the constant mostly sunny and barely any clouds I had for the short time I was there. In any case, I picked 5 of my favorite photos in black and white of Kamikochi to share, but if you are just arriving to this post directly, be sure to check out the other posts and photos of Myojin Pond, Taisho Pond, Kappabashi and just walking around Kamikochi.
