Japan Photo of the Week: Engakuji Sakura

This is my first post so let me just take a couple lines to introduce myself. My name is Evan Pike and I am an American photographer living in Japan, but like most foreigners in Japan, I teach English to pay the bills. I have lived in Japan for almost 2 years now and I enjoy teaching, but let’s be honest, I’m only still here so I can travel/photograph Japan and it’s people. Starting from now, once a week I will be showing you Japan through my eyes. To see more of my photographs check out my gallery or my blog, Japan Photo Guide. OK, enough of that.

Since we are right in peak of cherry blossom (sakura) season, which among other things is associated with the new fiscal and school year, it is only fitting that my first photo post is of one of the most beautiful and iconic symbols of Japan.

I took this photograph at Engakuji Temple in Kamakura, just outside of Tokyo. It is estimated that Japanese people take more than 5000 photographs of cherry blossoms in their life and I estimate that most of them turn out bad. Actually, it is quite difficult to take a good photograph of cherry blossoms but I will now give you the biggest secret of how to do so: wait. Seriously, the best piece of advice I can give you is to find a nice spot and wait, which is what I did (for about 45 minutes) to get the above photograph.

This photograph was taken by Evan Pike. If you would like to see more or buy this photograph, check out the gallery.