holga in hakone

My super amazing trip to Tokyo in April was made even more amazing when we visited the Hakone Open Air Museum - or as I like to call it 'the most magical place on earth!'

Just an hour out of Tokyo on the very fast 'Romance Car' this open air gallery is nestled in the most incredible Hakone landscape. It is filled with sculpture and has one of the largest Henry Moore collections in the world as well as an entire pavilion dedicated to Picasso - suffice to say we were a little bit excited!

The plan was to stay at the museum for a couple of hours then head off to explore the rest of Hakone in the hope of seeing Mt Fuji... 5 hours later we were still there! If you ever get to Tokyo this must go on your itinerary - I can't wait to go back!

I had my Holga as well as my DSLR - I wish I shot more with the Holga as it was a perfect day for it...

i blurbed my book!

I was so excited to receive my very first (and only) copy of a hard cover, bound and printed book filled with my photos! I've been meaning to do this for ages and I finally made the time to take the iPhone Instagram pics of my trip to Tokyo and turn them into a book. For someone that takes photos CONSTANTLY either as a form of story telling or visual diary having hundreds of photos that don't have a home seems like such a waste!

I used Blurb Books which is a super easy and super fast online service. They have great templates and you can download an InDesign extension for full creative control. Blurb allows you to do a direct import from Instagram. However I did this for a book I created for RK (secretly breaking into his account to put a book together of a trip he took a while ago) but because uploaded images are really compressed the quality isn't that great. This time I used the original pics from my iPhone (I generally don't use Insta-filters but do minor edits in Snapseed) so the resolution was much better.

I know this is just a glorified photo album but there is something about seeing my own work in a book that just makes it all a little more exciting! I already have another couple of projects on the go and look forward to creating my own personalised library!

postcards – a little more from tokyo!

Its taken me a while to work through editing these (and there's still more to do!). I'm drowning in learning how to use Lightroom and working out some kind of workflow. I'm slowly getting there I guess but the more time I spend with these photos the more desperate I am to get myself back to Tokyo!

postcards - tokyo in black and white

postcards - oh tokyo how i love you so!

People told me I would love Tokyo. I knew I would love Tokyo. But I never thought that in just 10 days this AMAZING city would get under my skin the way it did. I seriously can't stop thinking about it!

For me, this trip was about taking photos. My intention was to shoot film during the day and use the DSLR at night. Unfortunately my Nikon FM2 broke the 1st day there so I was committed to the DSLR and my trusty Holga.

I could write pages as to why I love Tokyo. It is my favourite topic of conversation at the moment - but I thought it would just be easier to post my photos which I hope tell the story a little better than my overexcited ramblings!

I also just wanted to say a special thank you to that beloved man who thinks that dropping everything to jump on a plane so I can take photos and he can look at buildings a reasonable thing to do! xx

As soon as the sun goes down its like Tokyo changes into a new sparkly glamourous outfit...