Planning & Tips

Momiji works down the country and down the mountains, so the season is a calendar rather than a month. Where the maples peak week by week, what the crowds do, and how to plan a photoshoot around it.

Full bloom lasts about a week and the date moves by up to a fortnight from year to year. Here is how the blossom really works, where it opens first, and how to plan a photoshoot around a window instead of a date.

In Japan the month matters more than the hour. Here is the year as a photographer meets it — what each season gives, what it costs, and why the two best ones can never be booked to a date.

Three things wreck a session in Japan and none of them is the photographer: water, wind and the calendar. All three are predictable enough to plan around, and two of them improve the pictures.

Almost everything that goes wrong with a camera in Japan comes down to whose ground you are standing on. Shrine and temple basics, tripods, permissions, and which Gion lanes are now closed.