The Shinjuku Photo Safari

So, last Friday was a national holiday, so my friend Blain and I packed up our cameras and headed off to the Buroughs of Tokyo on a Photo Safari:

Our first stop was Asakusa, with the beautiful Sensoji Temple:

I don't know why the temple had public phones, but they were interesting, and both Blain and I found them stunning... needless to say we both took pictures...

...then I set up with my street-zoom (300MM lens) and started taking pictures of the people entering the temple complex... I love this man's face:

I noticed a great deal of little kids in Kimono... Blain told me that it was Seven-Five-Three, the traditional holiday where kids aged -you guessed it-, seven, five or three years old dressed up and went to the temples... Well, this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up:

But that wasn't the best shot from Asakusa... I saw this little girl in a purple kimono and I redied my camera... then I took three shots... the last one (The one that came up on my screen) was a real loss... out of focus, cropped badly... bad color balance and I was so sad... but then, after I got home, I saw the first one of the set (The one I had set up my camera for... she was walking toward me after all), and I was stunned:


I'm not sure I could have done better if I tried...

....

I also got some great shots of lanterns from the main thuroughfare...

I love those lanterns:

...

After that was Shinjuku. The section of Tokyo famous for having the Krispy Kreme... yes, THE Krispy Kreme... there was a sign out front that said "The wait to get a doughnut is 1 hour and 30 minutes"... the line for the door trailed back 150 meters or so from the building entrance... I took pictures, but they weren't really "Portfolio quality", so you all can see them in my scrapbook when I get back. :D

What I did take from Shinjuku was this stunning picture of the high-rises from the bookstore... the amazing thing is; I took this shot without a tripod! :D

Shinjuku also had this wonderful display of what it called "A Circus of Light". Wire pagodas and wire animals were rigged with Christmas lights in a fantastic display... of course, me being me, I didn't care much for the wide shots... but I loved the close-ups...

Last we came back to Akihabara, also known as the Electric Town... If it runs on electricity, you can find it in Akihabara. I found this light shop (That's all they sell, lights... ) on a street corner and decided to have a lot of fun... This shop was so bright that on this cold November night I was being warmed by being on the sidewalk in front of this place... I set my light meter to the sidewalk, locked the shutter open (So my camera thought it was going to take a picture of a nighttime street), and snapped this shot:

---Shutterme