My Favorite Cherry Blossom Photo This Year
Cherry Blossoms or “sakura” are a major part of Japanese culture. I’d say there are at least 200 cherry trees within a mile of my house, and this is not at all unusual. It’s a perfect opportunity to try for the ultimate cherry blossom photo.
Every school yard, public park and playground, has a row of cherry trees. Temples usually have at least one, and many highways are lined with them as well. Starting in early March, the weather report will show the “cherry blossom front” as the trees burst into bloom in succession from south to north along with the warmer spring weather.
Photographers do their utmost to capture the great sea of pink and white that casts a happy sakura glow over the country, and most calendars have the quintessential cherry blossom photo. This year I focused on close-ups of the individual blossoms, and this one is my favorite.
It’s taken standing close to the trunk and pointing up toward the sky. It was the first clear day we’d had in forever, and the bright sun shows the shadows of the stamens for each sakura flower. The blue sky makes a great background, and the blurred cherries stretching away into the background show a little of the volume of flowers in the area. I especially like the little half open buds that look like little pink buttercups.
If you’re planning a trip to Japan, I’d recommend early April, when the sakura are blooming over most of the country. It’s a phenomenon you don’t want to miss!
It only snows three or four times a year where we live, so when it does it’s a major event. Last time it snowed, I jumped in the car and drove up the hill to see if I could get some snow photos. There was a beautiful soft sunlight, and some blue in the sky, and I went wild snapping shots in every direction. This cherry tree is perhaps one of my most successful basic snow photos.
Would you believe this little guy is only about 18 inches tall? I knelt down and took him close up, with the trees in the background.
When we’re taking portraits we tend to have them simply face the camera and say “cheese”. We don’t pay much attention to portrait angles or whether we are photographing children or adults. This is deeply engrained in us, simply because it tends to seem more personal to have the subject looking at the camera, as it gives the impression that they are looking at the viewer. 
I’ve always wanted to take pictures of refracting dew droplets, but thought I had to wait until I had a super strong macro lens. Of course there is a digital simulation of a macro lens in my pocket camera, but I hadn’t thought it would be strong enough to get so close. 
Japanese bamboo is amazing. It usually grows from root tubers sent out underground by the parent tree, but if you plant a seed, you will have to wait years before it sprouts, then it will grow to it’s full height in only 40 days. Japanese bamboo is actually a form of grass, but is so strong that construction workers often use it in place of steel to make scaffolding. Bamboo shoots are edible, and serve as a common vegetable in Japan.
I took these bamboo photos yesterday, as I was suprised to find the checkerboard pattern with green coloring on every other segment of this Japanese bamboo. It’s growing near a temple, so perhaps it’s just a little bit different variety from the regular Japanese bamboo we see all over the mountainsides in Southern Japan.