I have recently returned from Japan, where I spent about 12 days photographing the Japanese Macaque Snow monkeys, the Steller Sea eagles and White-tailed eagles, the swans, as well as the greatly endangered Red Crown Crane.  The winter landscapes of Japan can also be quite breathtaking as well.  I have grown to favor the winter seasons most during my photography journeys, and find myself often searching out new terrain to explore that will be draped in blankets of snow.  Northern Japan did not disappoint.  The journey there is quite long.  It started with a fourteen hour flight from New York to Tokyo.  Once there, we flew up to the Northern most island which is quite remote, especially compared to the typical density one perceives of Japan.  From there, we ventured out in a van, eleven of us in all.  We were all photographers and we had our hearts set on capturing these beautiful creatures in this magical setting.  I must confess, I have not traveled with such a focus on bird photography as this one and I wasn't sure if my lenses were powerful enough to best capture them.  I admired the equipment of my peers, though I didn't miss the added weight that came with carrying it around.  It is always a toss up as to what will yield the better pictures...either to travel lightly and nimbly to be able to move quickly to changing photographic opportunities, or to carry very large and powerful lenses requiring hefty support to capture the photographic opportunities further out in the distance.  I suspect it is a pendulum that swings both directions at various times.  At any rate, my new toy for this trip was the new GPS device that was mounted to my Canon 5D Mark III, which enabled my pictures to have GPS data embedded into them.  Now, through certain software, just simply clicking on the photo will launch a map to show precisely where that image was captured.  Hopefully soon, that option may be available on my site, too, for the viewers.  

In addition to this being a unique trip for me, I was also surprised to see that I came home with over 12,000 images for this trip.  I am generally one to be selective in my shots, and this has never occurred before, but given the extensive birding photography on this trip, I was often shooting in burst mode to capture these incredibly beautiful creatures.  The trip also provided quite a variety in lodging, and at times, my room consisted only of a foam pad, pillow and sheet, and nothing else.  Bathrooms were often shared in the hallways, and meals almost always consisted of something from the sea, plus a few fried grasshoppers, too boot.  The region we mostly focused in was Hokkaido, where a national park was nearby, though unfortunately closed for the winter.  One of our goals was to capture the world's largest owl, the Fish Owl.  Sadly, our day set up in the blinds to capture this bird was the day a severe blizzard blew in, and like a wise owl, it stayed away and probably kept to its current comfort and safety.  But that gives me another reason to go back, as if I really need a reason.  Temperatures were quite cold in the mornings...reaching minus 18 C.  But well after sunrise, became much more manageable.  The swans swimming in the hot springs may have been one of the highlights for me.  I felt I could never have taken enough of those images as they majestically moved and flew about.  The eagles were voluminous and seemed to be everywhere behind the fish laden boat we rode in.  And the monkeys showed no timidity sometimes hissing into our faces if they felt we were in their way.    But the Red Crown Cranes were the stars of this show, and their dancing and courting of mates was truly a site to behold.  Supposedly, less than 3000 cranes exists today, and their near extinction is due to man's intrusion into their wetlands for resources and land usage.

There is much that can be written about this trip and I will try to add more to the blog here about it soon.  I also experimented with taking video of the monkeys using my Canon 5D III, and some of the footage has been quite exciting to watch.  The facebook link on this site will take you to some of the ones I have put up online there.  Also, many of the images from this trip will be posted there and on the Google+ link, so be sure to visit those links, too.