Cherry Blossom Journal (1)

While cherry blossoms are stunning, I’ve found that capturing them well is surprisingly tough. Especially when the sun is too bright and you still want to shoot with a wide aperture, it’s so easy to overexpose every shot—to the point where no matter how I tweaked them later in post, it barely seemed to help. One thing I’ve learned recently is not to try fitting too many blossoms into the frame at once; otherwise, the colors just blend together into a blur and lose their charm. In short, I still have plenty of practicing to do. During my first few years in Japan, I lived right near Ohori Park, so coming here to see the cherry blossoms was practically a set ritual every March. Last year, I also visited Kokura Castle to photograph the blossoms.