I Traveled To The Ancient Shiratani Unsuikyo Forest In Japan And Here Are 15 Pictures That I Took There

I am a Japanese professional landscape photographer whose clients include Apple, Google and SONY, and won the first prize in the international photo contest IPA 2016. I am expanding my activities both in Japan and overseas. I have held a solo exhibition at Sony Imaging Gallery Ginza, Tokyo in 2019 and have over 30K followers on Twitter and Instagram.

I started photography as a hobby when I was 18, and have been working as a freelance photographer since I was 24. I take landscape photos in Japan and abroad.

The forests of Yakushima are a very special place among the forests of Japan. The primordial forest, purified by pure water from long ago, is still alive today. The greenery of the forests of Yakushima has a healing power that cannot be found in any other forest. This is a tourist destination in Japan that I hope people from overseas will visit.

Photography was not my first "love". Originally, I had a strong yearning for painting. I used to draw as a hobby. I'm not a very good painter, but I still paint from time to time. Additionally, when I was in college, I played the drums. My photographic sensibility is also very much influenced by music.

The forests of Yakushima are very beautiful, but the place that impressed me the most is probably the Finnish Lapland region, which I visited in winter. I was fascinated by the gradation of natural colors created by the clear air. I have posted about it on Bored Panda before. You can check it out here.

I still want to go to Iceland and the Lofoten Islands in Norway. Maybe that's gonna be my next destination!