Exploring Dazaifu Japan

Street photography, that mysterious style of photography that can mean so much, while showing so little. I can only look at the masters, wondering what magic they possess.

I have to be honest. It’s hard. Before really getting into it a year ago, I thought it was just, go around, take pictures of people crossing streets, apply VSCO and done. While that works too, there are some overwhelming challenges.

When you start looking at street photography, and I mean really looking at it, you start to see patterns. You realize photography is about building up a database of situations to look for. The person crossing the crosswalk, a clash of colors, irony, the airplane flying over the tip of a tower. That’s the easy stuff that very quickly starts making your portfolio boring.

The challenge is capturing that story in one frame, or building a mood through a series. That’s the art that only few have mastered and it’s incredibly hard. Maybe one day I’ll get there too.

Exploring Dazaifu Temple

As I explore southern Japan, I keep running into these two situations that send me into a tailspin. The first, I find it incredibly difficult to shoot in areas that are extremely crowded. Wherever you point your camera there is just a sea of people, whatever story your trying to capture is lost in the noise. The other challenge; areas that have no symmetry, or broken symmetry. Combine the two and I’m a mess.

That’s what Dazaifu Japan was a few days ago. It’s this cool Japanese temple, rich with culture and heritage, it seems like shooting there would be so easy. But now days, it’s become a hot spot for Chinese tourism, mix that with Golden Week and welcome to the jungle.