I am leading my annual cherry blossom photo workshop tour across Japan to one of my must-see locations for any visiting photographer: the iconic peak of Mt. Fuji. While most of us locals think of the five Fuji lakes—Yamanakako, Kawaguchiko, Saiko, Motosuko, and Shōjiko—there's a sixth lake, which my participants and I photographed this morning. There are several varieties of cherry blossoms in bloom, including the faintly pink Somei Yoshino (Prunus yedoensis) and the wild mountain cherry blossom (Prunus jamasakura), both of which are beautifully scattered around this sixth lake and around the other lakes during this time of year.
Our day starts well before dawn on all my photo workshops, almost daily to ensure that my group captures once-in-a-lifetime sunrise golden hour photos. The lakes around Mt. Fuji are prone to heavy fog banks at sunrise, so I don't know which lake will have a clear view of Mt. Fuji the night before. So, I wake up at least an hour before we depart to check weather charts for fog and wind directions, continuously monitoring online live weather chart updates until we enter our vehicles. By then, I knew which lake would have clear skies or the highest chance of being clear at sunrise, providing the perfect opportunity for breathtaking photos of Mt. Fuji.

We were fortunate to have clear skies this morning, and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. It was a fantastic morning to view and photograph Mt. Fuji with cherry blossoms as a backdrop. About an hour after sunrise, we returned to our lodgings for breakfast and a short break, and now we're back to exploring the Mt. Fuji region and its other lakes.

In addition to cherry blossom photography, my workshop also includes bird photography. The Japanese warbling white-eye (Zosterops japonicus), locally known as メジロ (mejiro), feeds on the sweet nectar of the blooming sakura as it flits through the expansive cherry blossom forests. Other species, such as the Siberian blue robin (Larvivora cyane), wrens (Troglodytes troglodytes), and the brown-eared bulbul (Hypsipetes amaurotis), also inhabit the region during sakura season, among other species. This diverse wildlife is another feature I can offer my cherry blossom photo workshop participants, having scouted and photographed throughout Japan for close to 30 years.