Toy Camera Kouyou

One final shot from The Kobe Municipal Arboretum, which is also known as the Kobe City Forest Botanical Garden. Used the LX3 Toy Camera Setting.

Kobe Municipal Arboretum

Last weekend visited the Kobe Municipal Arboretum (神戸市立森林植物園), and this is a view of Mount Maya from one of the mountain hiking trails. The weather in the Kobe mountains is a little cool this time of year, but the views make a few hours of wind chilled extremities totally worth it.

Autumn Leaves

Another shot from the Kyoto Botanical Garden, I really enjoy Autumn with its crisp cool air and the sweet pungent smell of the damp leaves that crackle under your feet. The vibrant colors that speckle the mountainside and blanket the corners of gardens and street sides. Kyoto is really charming in this season and might be the best city in Japan to enjoy Kouyou, at least in my opinion.

Kouyou Black & White

Normally, perhaps these days at least, the vibrant autumn landscapes are captured in color. For this scene I was drawn to try black and white, in this case with a red filter applied. I learned some about black and white printing in a photo lab with enlargers and color filters back in my school days. These days I work mostly in digital but still like to use filters, and the red filter actually filters out the "red" wavelengths of light - so the brilliant red and orange hues of the autumn trees fall to white. The effect is almost infrared photography like.

Kouyou 紅葉

Fall colors (Kouyou) are to the Japanese autumn what cherry blossoms (Sakura) are to spring. The viewing of autumn leaves has been a popular activity in Japan for centuries and today draws large numbers of travelers to famous kouyou spots both in the mountains and in the cities. As you can probably tell I am a big fan of autumn and its kouyou, and will be boring you with many shots like these over the next few days. Consider yourselves duly warned. This is another image from within the Kyoto Botanical Garden.

Kyoto Botanical Garden 京都府立植物園

Took a trip with some dear friends to the Kyoto Botanical Garden, which is a very nice place to view the many changing colors of the autumn leaves. The Kyoto Botanical Garden was founded in 1917, and opened to the public in 1924. After the World War II, it was occupied by the Allied Forces and fell into disuse, but was reopened as a botanical garden for relaxation in 1961.

Show Me Japan: Autumn

A statue of a monk on pilgrimage at the Sumadera temple surrounded by autumn foliage.

Last weekend the blog Budget Trouble: Travel and Trouble in Japan, hosted a photo meme called Show Me Japan (Vol.1 Issue 2), and now it is a weekly event. I really enjoyed seeing all the images from around Japan last weekend and was introduced to some wonderful folks; so I am participating again, and here we are.