This week Thursday 3.11.2022, has been one of the many national holidays in Japan, the day of the culture. I used the morning of that day to visit the Asakusa Tempel and Sensoji shrine. The path leading to the shrine is a hall way of food, souvenir, clothing and many other kind of small shops. As you can see the visitors are a wild mix of young and old, local, and international tourists and many are even dressed very traditional in Japanese travel clothing and shoes. Before entering the shrine the people are cleaning them selfs with the fume of the holy fire and with holy water they are washing hand and mouth. After this ceremony, the people are entering the entrance hall of the shrine were it’s forbidden to take pictures.
I love to stand in the middle of this visitors and try to capture some of the atmosphere and people. With a smile or just with an intensive eye contact I always ask kindly permission if I may take a picture. No body said even once no.
The highlight of all these pictures is a beautiful mother and her cute daughter sitting in a ricksha and offering me a wonderful smile after I asked for permission to take a picture. Just perfect, the most beautiful smiles in Tokyo.
All those images I have been taking with the 7Artisans 35mm f1.4 APSC on my Fujifilm X-PRO3 Black. The combination of the viewfinder style of camera with the modern lens in a traditional design are a kind of stealth mode. Compared to the many big and heavy high end DSLR Cameras equipped with huge zoom lenses my combo looks like a toy and people are relaxing while I take a picture. The perfect street photography kit.
I will soon come back and take many more pictures but this time in Black and White.
What kind of photography do you prefer?
