Lux Japan: City #3 Nagoya

A few days in Sapporo and then we flew down to Nagoya to meet up with my father’s language teaching friend Mary’s husband Mitsunori, a friendly and very well spoken host for our stop in Nagoya. Upon arrival Gayle unfortunately had a serious battle with the airport sushi we’d eaten (though gorgeous and tasty) so it was a tough beginning. She managed to recover enough to head out that evening for the shoot. No seriously, full on trooper.

Mitsunori lives on the 11th floor of a 14 story building (Soon his wife and two boys will be joining him but in the meantime we got to benefit from the unused space). From the landing outside his apartment I could see a few hills poking out from the city and pointed towards one. He told me there was a small castle a top that we could probably walk up to. Since it looked like a perfect option for a closer view of Nagoya we set out for it in his car. After overriding the GPS directions that took us right past the castle on the hill we found our way to the parking lot and up a mostly paved, sloping, spiral pathway to the top. I am not one to get nervous but it was an incredibly creepy walk in the pitch dark, mostly due to the flock of cawing ravens diving into and rustling the treetops. As we were silently ascending with our flashlights Mitsunori asked if we had seen the Blair Witch Projects. That about sums it up. Creepy.

Once at the top we found a rebuilt traditional Japanese Castle all lit up but the options looked slim in comparison to the last two mountain top views. After accessing a few breaks in the trees I started to get really excited about one shot of city framed almost completely on all sides with trees (except for one small opening on the upper left). I set up the shot and Gayle used her new super cool 35mm digi to show me what the shot would generally look like. While passing the time I got out the traditional Chupa Chup lolipops for all and we asked Mitsunori about his upbringing. It turns out somewhere in his past he became an expert at making origami cranes so I whipped out some paper and we had a lesson.

3 cranes and 3 lollipops and a lot of trying to stay warm later the shot was done. We packed up and were off to a mall near the apartment for one of the best buffet dinners ever. As a curious eater it was heavenly though Gayle let me do most of the testing! WE LOVE JAPAN!