Drive by shooting...

Kyoto style! *The title is coined by Larissa, more on that later!

I just had a fantastic trip to Kyoto, Japan with my friend, Larissa. This trip was actually planned and replanned many times with various friends but I could never do it what with husband being gone all the time and the kids, etc. It's actually the first time I have ever traveled without the kids and/or hubby. I am so glad I made this trip with such a fun travel companion. La La Larissa! We started out on Friday afternoon. By the time we had navigated our way from the airport to our hotel it was about 5:30pm. We threw our stuff in the room and hit the ground running (as we did for the next 3 days!). Our first stop was the Gion district of Kyoto because I wanted to photograph a Geisha. Well, it's not quite as easy as you think as the establishments that the Geiko frequent (as they are actually known thanks to a lovely Japanese couple we met whist philosophizing on Philosophers walk explained to us) are actually rather exclusive and pretty much the Geiko comes out of the place and gets straight in a waiting car. I like the BW too...

So, back to Larissa's term. A lot of the time whilst walking I would just shoot from the hip anything interesting I saw, some of the images would come out really gritty and that's cool! That's when Larissa said I was 'drive by shooting' LOL Back in the day, my Dad and I would go to Portobello Market in London. He would have a waist level finder attached to his camera to shoot street scenes inconspicuously. Because, seriously, people have had their cameras taken and destroyed or been beaten up getting street photography in London! So, here is a selection of my 'drive by shootings Kyoto style!...

Old man walking...

Bicyclist under a bridge, I really quite like this one, very raw...

An old lady walking along the beautiful Fushimi Inari Shrine (10,000 Toriis)

Mother and child walking the 10,000 Toriis...

Sumimasen!

Passing Maiko, I really like this image...This was night 2. We were more lucky and I was able to photograph some Maiko (apprentice Geiko) while they were waiting for their car to come. Here they are when I first saw them. More photos coming...

At the airport...

Here is a great article explaining what a 'Geisha' is!
And here we are, near the top of the 10,000 Torii's!

I will post some more from the Kyoto trip soon!