On the last day of my recent trip to Japan, I returned to Tokyo to find that the rain clouds had also returned and settled in over the city. With my convenience-store umbrella in hand, I decided that it might still be worth taking a walk through Tokyo’s answer to Central Park: the massive Meiji Jingu, a 170 acre park and Shinto shrine honoring the late Emperor Meiji and his wife Empress Shoken.
With my feet splashing through standing puddles in the fading late afternoon light, I reached the first tori gate and entered the grand walkway through a tunnel of overhanging trees. Despite being in the middle of the largest city in earth, the park was mostly empty, and the rain made the air misty.
I only took a few pictures. I was hesitant to take my camera gear out in the pouring rain, I suppose, but I was also simply enjoying the quiet of the place. The warm glow of the lights, as they came up for the evening, was a wonderful contrast with the cold and rain.
The previous year, my visit to Meiji Jingu had been very different: on a warm and sunny day, on the occasion of the Emperor’s Birthday, the shrine was bustling with tourists and a wedding was taking place.
And that’s it. If there was a point to this post, it was simply a reminder that bad weather can produce wonderful photos, and it’s particularly helpful in giving a photographer new perspectives on a familiar spot.
