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Here is another photo from the Meiji Shrine yearly 3 day event, which revolves around culture. You can admire martial arts shows, traditional dance, horseback archery, Noh theater, etc. After the event I asked one of the riflemen to pose for me, as I wanted to snap one portrait in a very traditional and sort of vintage manner, with a static subject facing me directly, gazing straight into the camera. I wanted to convert this photo to black and white, and here is the final result. You can admire the traditional outfit of a pre Meiji restoration era of a Japanese rifleman.
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Here is another photo from the 3 days Aki no Taisai (the grand autumn festival) at Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo, which event is organized every year in November in order to celebrate the anniversary of Emperor's Meiji birthday. Many various types of art are being displayed and performed during this time, including Noh theater, kyudo (long bow archery), yabusame (horseback archery), various traditional martial arts, like iaido, etc. In the photo below you can see pre-Meiji period Japanese riflemen in traditional armor. I snapped this photo from a slightly different angle than everyone else, and I think it makes it much more interesting. I think that people look much more believable and real when photographed from a third person perspective.
My Youtube channel with free photoshop tutorials Photography workshops in Tokyo - click for more details. Hire a photographer in Toky Every country has something that you will not like or appreciate, and some things that you will absolutely love. Japan is a very peculiar country, locked on a few islands, both geographically and spiritually. The mentality of Japanese people and their culture are so different from what we have back in Europe, that it is really tough to compare one reality against the other. But some things are so unique and so Japanese that they simply do not exist outside the bubble. Here is a photo I snapped today, just outside my mansion, and it is a package for someone tucked into the mailbox. The package was too large, so it sticks out and could be easily grabbed by anyone. I guarantee you, that this package could stay there till it decays, and no one will dare to touch it, bah, no one will even think of doing it. This is so natural for us here, that no one would consider it to be odd. In Europe this package would be gone in 60 seconds. Safety is one of those great bonuses that I really appreciate in Japan, and I do wish that all of us foreigners visiting or living in Japan can respect and appreciate those little things that makes us enjoy our stay.
My Youtube channel with free photoshop tutorials Photography workshops in Tokyo - click for more details. Hire a photographer in Toky In Japan you can still feel that women are being treated as less important that men, and it has a strong historical background, with some intriguing exceptions. Strangely enough there is a culture of so called onna-bigeisha, which means a female martial artist. They have already appeared in Kamakura period (11th century), and came from upper class families. Women who chose the path of a warrior joined the ranks of samurai. Below you can see a photo of a female horseback archer, during a yabusame (horseback archery) event at Meiji Jingu in Tokyo. The crowd enjoyed the show, but whenever one of the two female archers were performing, everyone was going crazy with cheers.
My Youtube channel with free photoshop tutorials Photography workshops in Tokyo - click for more details. Hire a photographer in Toky Well, that was a hell of a tricky event to shoot. The main reason for it was that finding a good spot was nearly impossible, if you did not get there 5h beforehand to book your spot. Even so, there was a designated path for the horses to pass, which was marked by a row of posts connected with a rope. So there goes the feeling of a photo taken 200 years back, where you cannot see any marks of the modern world whatsoever. I was shooting this event for 2h, trying different spots, finding a good lighting and backgrounds, which was also tricky, as we had tons of clouds (and I wanted a strong backlight or side light to boost the colours and create a strong contrasty image), or there were some flags, posts, or people in a way. Still, I managed to capture a few nice frames that I am happy with, so here is one of them, a shot of my favorite archer. He had lots of charisma, poker face expression, and was cool but focused, just like any warrior should be. In Japanese it would be called 心構え (kokorogamae), which stands for readiness.
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