This photo (click here), the top of a shrine against a blue sky, was taken at the peak of Mt. Norikura (乗鞍岳） in the early summer.

Norikuradake is located right on the border between Nagano and Gifu prefectures, at the southernmost part of the Kita Alps (“north alps”). If I am not mistaken, the name comes from its saddle-like shape. From the surrounding highlands such as Kaidakogen (開田高原) further to the south, I think it has one of the prettiest profiles of all the mountains I have seen — especially at dusk if viewed from the old Nomugi-toge （野麦峠） pass road.

It is an easy peak to access. When I took this picture, I had left Yokohama in the early evening, arriving in Nagano around ten, where I borrowed a car, driving on through Matsumoto and arriving at the base approach around midnight. I remember that night — sleeping in the car and looking at the stars which were unbelievably bright at that altitude. From there, it was only about a two hour hike to peak. I took many photos that morning, but this is one of my favorites.

It was already “late” (around 8:00, and mountain photographers know what I mean), and the lighting was changing constantly because of the clouds being whipped across the summit by the wind. There were only a handful of hikers up there, so it was very peaceful and quiet. I knew all along that framing the roof of the shrine would make a good shot — it was just a matter of waiting for the sun to break through the clouds and throw light on the foreground, and to time it so there was some interesting cloud formation in the background.

Metering was not difficult. I used a hand-held incident reading in front of the shrine, and spot-metered the sky just to be sure.

The main point about this shot is the lens work. If you rolled over your cursor on the image, you will have seen that I shot it with my Hasselblad and a 50 mm wide-angle lens, hand-held. I read all the time that you “can’t” shoot medium format without a tripod, but I do often with my 50 mm lens. I love that lens — I think it is perfect for hand-held work. In any case, I had no choice. To get the composition I wanted, I needed to climb up the side of wall of loose rock that had been piled about shoulder high around the shrine to protect it from the elements. I could not have used a tripod even if I wanted. (I almost did not get to take this picture. When the kaminushi — 神主 or shrine priest — heard me scrambling around on the rock, he came out from inside the shrine and was mightily irate with me…). So hand-held it was, making maximum use of the wide angle lens’ depth of field — stopping it down to f22, which still gave me a shutter speed of 1/125 — more than enough for a hand held shot.

No filter — not even a polarizer. I was tempted use one, to really punch out the blue. But underexposing half a stop was enough. The Fuji Velvia 100 did its job. (My further thoughts on filter technique found here.)

I like the gorgeous blue contrasted against the sun-bleached silvery wood of the shrine. (If you look closely at the wood, you can see that the grain really stands out. This is from the “sand blasting” effect of the dirt and wind at that altitude.) It could be a mountain peak anywhere in the world, but　of course with the shrine profile it says “Japan”. There is also a nice sense of altitude, I think, because of the hint of the highlands below.

First, I should mention that most of the photographs I have initially selected for the current four albums in my gallery are from an exhibition I held recently in Yokohama and Kobe. The great people at Patagonia made the exhibition possible — twenty three of my photographs were on display in two stores for most of June and early July.

The common underlying theme of all of these photos is that I took them while travelling along the ancient Japanese kaido (街道) roads in Shinshu　（信州）, Echigo （越後）, Echizen (越前) , and Echu (越中）.  (I would like to talk about the “kaido” in a later post — they are a fascinating way in which to understand better the Japanese topography, ethnology and history.

A few words about the technical aspects of the images.

These are all shot on slide film — mostly Fuji (Vevia 50 and 100, and Fortia, which appears to be available only in Japan); I sometimes use Kodak Ektachrome in winter. Generally, I do not shoot negative film, although I do have some black and white work I would like to post in the gallery at a later date.

The flip side of this as that none of the images here are digital, nor have they been digitally altered. I may need to tweak the saturation or contrast a little, but this is only to get the scans as close as possible to the orginal slides. I am against digitally altering photographs. I don’t see the point; I am trying to capture on film what moves me as I really see it with my own eyes, not create an idyllic memory of it. (More on this topic later, too…)

As a rule, I don’t use filters. The only exceptions are, depending on weather and lighting conditions, I may use a polarizer filter, a half neutral density filter, and/or if appropriate, a light-balancing filter to compensate for light-temperature related colour shift. I talk a little about my “filter philosophy” at this post. And anyways, filters get in the way of the brilliant optics of the Carl Zeiss lenses I use.

Unlike examples of my work you might find on-line elsewhere , which is mostly shot in 35 mm format, the focus of what I want to showcase here has been shot in medium format (6 x 6). The subject matter and style is subtley different, I think, than what I do in 35 mm format. I would like to talk about the interesting differences between 35mm and 6 x 6mm in a later post. For reference, I use a Hassleblad 503 cxi and three lenses: 50mm, 80mm and 180mm. I sometimes use a 2x teleconverter.

As you can see, there are four albums in the gallery, which you can move between by clicking on the little icon in the lower left hand corner (some people miss this). If you roll your cursor over the image, photo data will cascade down from the top of the image. I have not finished adding all the data, but will update as time permits.

I hope I have answered some of the questions you have been thinking about — most of the above is based on what people ask me. Feel free to submit any questions or comments you have!