Exploring Zen and Escaping Tourist Pollution - Essence of Autumn Leaves Photo Tour Workshop

While exploring off the beaten path locations for my annual Essence of Autumn Leaves photo tour, I sometimes get assistance from an old friend, the concierge of the Zen forest.  When I feel a sudden burst of inspiration or the perfect landscape shot presents itself to me, I credit my decades of experience in the field first, but I always give my thanks to the concierge as well.  A typical autumn in Japan in starts in Hokkaido and northern Japan in mid to late-September, and it lasts until mid-December in parts of the Kanto region and southern Japan, so just last week I was leading a private photography workshop and commercial gig in an ancient healing Zen Buddhist sanctuary, and it went well into the Blue Hour for long exposure, one exposure lasting up to five minutes. There are a multitude of images from that one Zen Garden and region, which is amazing when viewed in the autumn light. The images attached to this newsletter are a few of those mind popping images that I captured in the misty blue- purple haze; we had the perfect overcast weather in the lowlands of Yamanashi Japan close to Mt. Fuji.  There are several zen gardens at the base of Mt. Fuji, and some are isolated housing national treasures in the buildings with mind-boggling Zen gardens and no people ambling aimlessly.  No one is queuing to take a photo as they do in the capitals of Japan: Nara, Kyoto, and Tokyo in the so-called Zen gardens or a few kilometers away at a lake with all the tourists.  Zen gardens are supposed to be sublime and private, so why are hundreds of people lining up to take photos in them on a daily basis?  My camera settings for the zen blue hour autumn leaves session were about 1/min – 5/min or longer ISO 100-400, and my f-stops were 11-16.  These long exposure techniques pull every element in the image from the shadows and performs a balancing act, this creates an abstract process of the mind to create more vibrancy, an image the naked eye is unable to perceive. In one session, I specifically requested photography with no shadows and a touch of mist from the Zen Forest concierges, and to honor my request, a fog bank was called in, and the participants on the workshop received a few minutes of golden hour lighting with just one or two rays of sun breaking through, and then the blue hour was illuminated flawlessly. The fiery orange and red autumn leaves appear even more radiant with the colors having nowhere to hide.