Photographing on my annual Hokkaido photo tour, or any of my Japan workshop tours means chasing the light with camera in hand daily, and believe me, my participants, support staff team members, and I cover lots of ground; we don’t sit around in our hotel rooms. I also don’t play celebrity photographer and bore clients with endless hours of in hotel workshops as many of my competitors do! Also, as a local to Japan, you don’t have to wait for my team and me to get over jet lag with you. I always recommend to clients who are traveling on long haul flights to arrive a day or two before our photo workshops start date in order to adjust to the time difference, because as soon as our meet and greet has concluded, we hit the road.
All themes of photography are a pure joy for me, and I especially enjoy abstract photography, especially unique tree bark; there is something special in tree bark patterns that grabs ahold of me. And a closer look is a must, especially when I happen upon evergreens such as, the Lacebark pine (Pinus bungeana). The pine tree is native to northeastern and central China, but across Japan, we have dozens of transplants that I have come across, including in Hokkaido. And on day two of my annual Hokkaido photo tour, while my group of participants and I were on our way to the snow monkey park, we stopped at an ancient Buddhist hall built in the 16th century to photograph the hall, its garden, and one of these rare pine trees.
The Lacebark Pine commonly grows to heights of 15-25 meters (49 - 82 feet) and is strong against frost conditions an overall low temperatures as it has to be because Hokkaido’s weather can change on a dime, and bomb cyclones and thunder snowstorms are the norm during winter. The name ‘lacebark’ comes from how the grey-green bark sheds in what resembles patches or scales on the trunk and branches of the tree. The exposed patches slowly evolve from a pale yellow to an olive-brown, red, and purple once they are exposed to light and oxygen. However, the process for the lacebark pine to start shedding its bark takes 10 years to begin! Once these slow growing trees start their magnificent bark casting off, it lasts for the remainder of the life of the tree.
Don’t worry, most of my Hokkaido wildlife photo tour is about wildlife such as the Steller’s Sea Eagles (Haliaeetus pelagicus), Blakiston’s Fish Owls (Bubo blakistoni), White-tailed Eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla), Red-crowned cranes (Grus japonensis), the Eurasian nuthatch or wood nuthatch (Sitta europaea), the Japanese tit (Parus minor) also known as the Oriental tit, Ezo Sika Deer (Cervus nippon,) the great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major), Whooper swans (Cygnus cygnus), the Japanese weasel (Mustels itatsi), among other wildlife, and landscapes.
In closing, on every single workshop I lead, I make sure to stop at an ancient shrine or two, and try for Mt. Fuji as well, as many of my clients are in Japan just once, and that is for the snow monkeys, Hokkaido, and wildlife.