Shinjuku

Shinjuku | NEX-7 & SEL18200LE |  97mm, 1/8s, f/10.0, ISO100, RAW [Lightroom edited] Shinjuku is the neo-Tokyo at the forefront of most people's minds. Come here on a rainy day, and you'll think you've stepped into Bladerunner. though we're still waiting for the flying cars. It's not rare to see the horizon, or further than 500 metres... it's nigh on impossible. Skyscraper central. Old and new. Shops going up 10 stories, restaurants going up 11. One can't walk around here as one does back home. One must look up. One must embrace neck ache.

Shinjuku houses the world's busiest train station, but more on that another time. I pass through, or under, Shinjuku each day. Sometimes I'll meet Charlie there for a bite to eat, sometimes I will go and look in electronics shops until 10pm... Shinjuku never sleeps. It's the town of neon. There are some temples, tucked away, in between car-parks and tall buildings, but for the most part, Shinjuku is a life-size Lego city. Stacked to ridiculous proportions, like some kind of Goliath game of Jenga.

It's easy to spot the twin-towered government building (Tocho), which gives generous views to the west. Here, it's in the top left. There's the cocoon:

Shinjuku is an absolute melting pot of activity. I don't think there's any chance that we could eat in every restaurant in Shinjuku in our lifetime... if we ate out for every single meal. There are thousands. Coffee served all through the night, too. Ah, I'll miss this place when I live somewhere without trains. Somewhere without 7-storey camera stores. It's far too easy for me to take it for granted. I guess that happens to all of us, as one point or another. Complacency, a dangerous thing!

P.S. The main shot was inspired by Holger Feroudj. Please check out his fantastic website.

Bamboo

竹 │ NEX-7 & Voightländer Nokton Classic 35mm F1.4 │ 35mm, 1/60, ISO 1600, f/1.4, Lightroom 4.2

Bamboo, or "ta-ke", is native to Japan, and can be found everywhere from gardens and temples, to bowls of ramen (it's quite delicious!). It grows both in the wild and is part of landscape gardens and inner-city planning, to the extent that I don't know if any bamboo in and around Tokyo is actually wild. The same goes for all the trees here, really. Tokyo is breathtakingly huge, and its designation as the largest metropolitan area in the world (source) means that human influence oozes out from every nook and cranny. Having said that, every now and then, we do find areas which, quite obviously, have been left as they are (such as a building with a tree going through it - yes, I need a photo).

Rikugien at Night

I've been to Rikugien Gardens before, but never at night. Sunset is before 6pm now, so we won't be leaving the work in sunlight for another 6 months, most likely. Sunrise in Tokyo is still relatively early, compared to winter in the UK, however.

In the weeks running up to Christmas/New Year, the park has been lit up rather beautifully, and was full of couples taking a romantic walk... and photographers with tripods and backpacks full of gear. As I'd just come from work, I was trying to be both of the above, but the low-light realm is one of the holy grails of photography. No-one is a master, and no lens is ever "fast" enough (lets in enough light to allow a fast shutter speed and reduce motion blur). That's where the optical image stabilisation of the SEL18200LE came into play, allowing me to take this handheld shot at 1/4". Though one quarter of a second sounds like a very short time, it's effectively eons in photography. Without image stabilisation, I could not have taken the above image, simple as that. Though I have faster lenses, shutter speeds were still hampered, and so this was one of the better photos from the group that evening, though more may follow.

End of Fall

The weather in Tokyo has taken a sharp turn and become rather cold. Just two weeks ago, I didn't need a jacket, but now there's a crispness in the air signifying the upcoming winter.

The shot above really couldn't be from anywhere other than Japan, in my book. I took this photograph yesterday afternoon at dusk, utilising the Voigtländer's wide aperture, aka "fastness", to absorb as much light as possible. I was very pleased with the result, as I have probably missed the peak of Autumn this year, but managed to get at least one shot showing the contrasts and colours one can expect in Japan during this dynamic month.

Tōjinbō

Tōjinbō │ NEX-C3 & SEL 16mm  F2.8 │ 16mm, ISO 200, f/11, ±0.3EV Autobracket HDR Last week, I went on a fieldwork assignment to a relatively remote area in central Japan. After 2 hours of bullet train and 2 hours of local-express trains, I reached the location for our hire car. After 90 minutes drive, we made it to the site. We travelled on the Wednesday, aptly 水曜日 in Japanese, which literally means water-day. Aptly named, because the heavens were open the entire day and night. So ferocious was the rain, that we couldn't do any of the required outside work and left that until the following morning.

Thursday was a long and hard day of work, but went well. On Friday we were scheduled to return back to Tokyo, but had a few hours to kill. We headed for the coast, to see Tōjinbō. The cliffs' rocks were originally formed 12- to 13-million years ago during the Miocene Epoch due to various volcanic activities. Their shape has been formed through the years by erosion from sea waves, leaving the hardened magma behind.

We arrived at around 8:30am, and the entire area was completely empty. When we left an hour later, coaches had arrived carrying schoolchildren, Chinese tourists and the very elderly Japanese. As with any natural environment, it's better without the people.

Bullet-train in Tokyo

Bullet-train in Tokyo │ NEX-C3 & SEL 16mm  F2.8 │ 16mm, ISO 640, f/7.1, 1/60, 0EV Tokyo is so densely populated not just by people, but the buildings and communication lines making up more of a neural network than any other city I know. There's a road, above which is a train line, above which is a motorway - and they all cut in between the sky scrapers in a way that asks the question... "which one was built first?".

In this photo, we look through the window of a skyscraper in Marunouchi, Tokyo, out towards the popular shopping districts of Ginza and Roppongi. The Tokyo train terminal is to the bottom right of the photo, where the subject is heading. The bullet trains really are something special. Whether you like trains or not, nothing is like being on one of these. The huge 16-carriage trains snake through Japan at 167mph every few minutes. They remind me of the asian depiction of a dragon, with its long, slender body and pointed nose.

Can you make out Tokyo Tower?

Sunset

Lens: Sony E 18-200 LE F3.5-6.3 OSS (SEL18200LE) Camera: NEX-C3, 132mm, ISO 200, f/6.3, -3.0, 1/250, RAW

The weather here's been showers on and off for the whole week, as Typhoon No.16 passes over Japan on its route to Korea. Japan is privy to multiple typhoons (hurricanes) every year, and Okinawa is almost always affected en route. I was in Okinawa for just 4 days, in between Typhoons 15 and 16. I missed 16 by just one day. The day after returning to Tokyo, NHK broadcast live images from Naha airport in southern okinawa, where all flights had been cancelled due to strong winds and high seas flooding the runway. Quite the lucky escape.

Luckier still, was the weather I experienced in Okinawa. Gorgeous weather. This sunset picture was snapped in Nago-shi about half way up the island. I also took a video of the sunset, using the C3 and the zoom lens, which I plan on incorporating into a video in the near future.