Motherhood

It's been a number of years since I've first photographed the so-called snow monkeys—Japanese macaques. My first acquaintance took place at Jigokudani outside Nagano in late fall. As a result, this ensured the fact that some of my images resembled those iconic photographs of hot onsen providing the resident monkeys necessary refuge in cold weather.

This time around, smoldering summer heat and relentless humidity or Arashiyama, Kyoto area, in August seemed to offer the opposite effect. Yet my images are no worse. Take this endearing Motherhood photograph of a snow monkey and her offspring, as she stares thoughtfully (or is she fatigued?) into the distance, as the baby naps.

End-of-Summer Golden Hour

Somehow the color yellow crept through, unnoticed, to shady aspen groves and fluffy, baby-chick weeds, bike trails and deer's favorite napping spots. Yet, so much green still remains. This is the twilight zone between summer and autumn.

Old and New

When people travel abroad, it's obviously tempting to photograph things that appear exotic to their eye, hence the propensity to document the best-known tourist attractions. Such subjects are also what their audience wants as a way of vicariously living through through this kind of imagery: luscious nature, unusual architecture, traditionally clad people.

I won't lie that I'm not similarly attracted to, say, Shinto shrines and the most famous sites of natural beauty when it comes to Japan. Yet what I'd almost rather photograph—when there is the possibility to do so—is everyday scenes that are either aesthetically pleasing or attractive in some other way. That is to say, their interest should arise from something other than exoticism.

Take this simple night scene, for instance. It emphasizes the contrast between a row of lanterns and the “window,” through the trees, onto a major street in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Old and new. Traditional and contemporary. 

Yet by being in Japan, this scene strikes me more than similar instances in places like Moscow, which I may even overlook, where old churches can often be found next to sleek high-rises. 

So the goal, perhaps, is to be even more subtle. 

Japan, Again

I just returned from my much-needed, albeit equally brief vacation, which I took, you guessed it, in Japan. I've done a few travel updates on my Instagram, but have neglected this blog.

This changes now.

My first update is a simple image of one of the many fox statues at the iconic Shinto Fushimi-Inari shrine, the earliest structures of which date to the 8th century, in Kyoto. I'm no expert on Japanese mythology, though it seems like here the fox carriers a similar multifaceted function to foxes from other cultures: messengers for communication with another world, tricksters.