Here are some photos of around where I live, in Ichinomya in Chiba, Japan…
I got up at 4:30am to get some sunrise shots on the beach. It was Sunday, and even at sunrise the beach is crowded with surfers – many from Tokyo on their weekend break – quite possibly their one day off each week.
Technical: I exposed for the background of this image to silhouette the figures against the back light. By setting the white balance to flash, I enhanced the colour temperature to an even warmer tone than the true early morning light.
Black, volcanic sand with tetrapods protecting the land from typhoon swells and tsunamis. People leave their surfboards, bikes and shoes lying around, because nobody steals things in Japan.
I love the morning sunlight on this boat.
Technical: The hazy atmosphere diffused the sun to soften the warm early-morning sunlight. I shot at a fairly wide-angle to distort the shape of the boat and enhance the surreal feeling of the image.
A few of our neighbours, with rice paddies in the foreground. Japanese people tend to have different taste in housing colours, to what I’m used to back in Australia. Pink is a bit of a favourite choice around here.
Technical: Breaking the rule of thirds, I cut this image in half, which I think often works really well for reflections. The air was completely still, so I was able to capture this perfect reflection, without a single ripple on the water.
Afternoon light on our neighbour’s rice crop – just before planting
Technical: Shot at f/1.8 on a 50mm canon lens provided very shallow depth-of-field
Technical: Shooting this bike at ‘correct’ exposure gave a really average shot, so I underexposed dramatically to capture the thick, heavy atmosphere, typical of many Asian places. The particles in the atmosphere are what give tone to the sky here.
I waited for the tide to bring the water in to the perfect place to reflect the sun like this, contrasting with the black sand.
Technical: I shot with a fast shutter speed to freeze every detail of the moving water.
So many surfers, so little waves
Car insurance/registration is really expensive in Japan, so many people choose to just leave their car to rust away and buy a new one. Similarly, it’s expensive to have your rubbish collected so a lot of rubbish is also left lying around the countryside in people yards….or cars.
Rubbish needs to be sorted into cardboard, plastic and styrofoam, or combustible and non-combustible – Yes, the burnt it!
Our new seedlings – beans, capsicum, cucumber
Our ‘hashi’ – chopsticks
The surfer in our toilet – when you flush, the water refills through the top of the cistern, so you can wash your hands, and the water is recycled into the tank – Absolute Brilliance!
