Well, today was spent mostly on buses with a tour, other than my wife not being able to go because of work, it was pretty awesome. First up was the Yudaki Waterfall (below) and second was the 320 foot Kegon Falls (above). Lastly, we ended up at the Toshogu Shrine dating back to the 17th century! While it was amazing, it was hot, we got rained on, and was humid the entire day but I think I got some good shots, we’ll see. It was the first test of my Mindshift Messenger Bag, I’ve had for about four months but this was the first time I lugged it around all day. It worked great! These photos were all taken with the iPhone 7 Plus.

Loving Japan, looking forward to blogging more when out shooting but for now I just need to get off the bus and in bed. Do I sound whiny? Yup! Oh, please check out BillChizekPhotography.com!

Photo: Headless

Location:  Colonial Beach, VA

Date:  October 8, 2018

Camera & Lens:  Canon 6D mkii and 24-70mm lens

About This Photo:  I post my photos at many sites, you can find where from this blog or my main website, I’m not difficult to find.  While I was living on Fort Belvoir, some folks about two hours down the road in Colonial Beach, Virginia reached out to me on Instagram asking if I’d come to Colonial Beach and take some shots of their town.  My wife and I decided to drop in on our way back from visiting friends in Norfolk.  This was October, not much happening, it reminded me of Italy the way everything shuts down for winter by the end of September.  In the same way, you could sense that this little town on the Potomac River gets busy in the summer and I’d love to check it out during the summer if I’m ever back in the area.  

Before leaving, I consulted my good friend Google Images to see what was already online and the plan was to shoot nothing I found there.  I usually do this so my photos, fingers crossed, don’t blend in but stand out.  Once we arrived, our girls just ran to the beach which was cool as I was free to shoot.  I immediately noticed swans, and there was one in particular that was swimming the water’s edge.  When he came out, I carefully approached as to not scare him/her (not sure what this bird identifies as…), and the swan started grooming and I just happened to get a shot with its head tucked on the other side of the body.  The result was the photo at the top, Headless; it came out kind of cool as the shutter clicked just at the right time.  It was a fun little stop on our way home, I took a couple of other photos that came out decent (below).  Thanks to the people at Colonial Beach for asking me to come down!    

This photo, Wet Walk, was selected for digital exposition in the Street Photography Exhibit at the  Photosynthesis Art Center in Sofia, Bulgaria on August 1, 2019.  It was taken back in December of 2013 on a trip to Florence, Italy when we lived in Naples.  We had some very good friends visiting from the states and were showing them around.  It was raining and our daughters were walking on the cobblestone streets in the rain with an umbrella with my wife, in the red boots on the right.  This is why I sometimes go back and look at old photos of mine, I found old ones that click with me that didn’t originally.  I’ll take photos, really like some of them, and edit them while getting tunnel vision and blocking out the others.  Later, sometimes many years as is the case with this one, I’ll go back and look at them and think, “why didn’t I see this before?”  Also, I’ve taken photos but didn’t have the editing chops at the time to make them look right, so I’ll wait on them.  Either way, it’s the reason I go back and relook at the old pics I’ve taken.