Travel

Himeji

After visiting Arashiyama early one rainy morning, my return to my hotel took me via Kyoto central station. With it only being 11AM, I realised that I could easily hop on a bullet train and be in Himeji within the hour. So I did.

I spent most of the afternoon wandering around the castle and its gardens, so unlike my other blogs, this is very much a post about one singular attraction. Throughout my time in Japan, I shot virtually all my tourist photos on my Canon G7X, which has time and time again impressed me with its quality and versatility.

So here are a few images from my day wandering around the ‘white egret’ castle!

Nara

I hadn’t planned on visiting Nara until actually arriving in Tokyo. My friends suggested I go, so during my Kyoto time, I got up at the crack of dawn (to avoid the other tourists) and hopped on a train to Nara.

Wow. If you go to Japan and you want to see the old Japan, go to Nara. Kyoto is nice, but its a big city with lots of tourists. If you make it to Nara for 6-7am, you will literally be the only one walking around some of the most impressive temples I saw during my stay.

Also, Nara is home to hundreds and hundreds of sacred deer. These guys are actually pretty tame near the temples, and you can feed them special deer cookies you can buy from the shops, but the ones who live in the woods are a little more wild.

Kyoto

After my first week and a bit in Tokyo, I planned to go and stay in the old capital of Japan, Kyoto. It was a couple hours away on the ‘Shinkansen’, more commonly known to westerners as the Bullet Train. That thing is amazing! 275+ kmph, loads of legroom, smooth ride, reclining seats, it really is the nicest train I’ve ever taken.

Kyoto was a really interesting city for me. It has an abundance of temples, basically every other street has a shrine to something, my hotel was like a tennis balls throw away from one.

Kyoto was always on my list for three spots though. Kinkaku-ji AKA the Golden Pavilion, Arashiyama for the Bamboo grove and Fushimi-Inari for thousands and thousands of beautiful red Tori gates. I was able to see all three and more, so here are my images…

Tokyo

Its been a lifelong dream of mine to go to Japan, so I decided to book a ticket and spend three weeks in August exploring Tokyo and Kyoto, with a day trip to both Nara and Himeji. I was blessed with the hospitality of two Japanese legends, Masaru and Yuutaro, who showed me around the city and introduced me to a ton of culture. They also helped me read things a lot.

Tokyo is a really interesting city, because it is so dense, and the architecture is usually quite cramped. This made for great images and plenty of roof-topping, which combined with the many lights in most of the districts we frequented, resulted in some tourist photos that I’m quite proud of. Then throw in the contrast of the old temples and shrines, and you get a real mishmash of atmospheres. I describe Tokyo as a city where everything feels big and small at the same time, its bizarre.

Los Angeles

Finally I made it to Los Angeles. Its funny once you get to a city thats so often filmed, and I’ve only ever really had it with New York, but you feel this weird sense of familiarity to the place. The streets look recognisable, the street names I’ve heard in music and movies before, I guess its because its cheap to shoot near where all the studios are, but it was still a bit eerie for me. I had an awesome time though, with so many things to see and explore, ticking tourist boxes and taking photos. California really does have a lot to see and do, especially some killer sunsets and rocky landscapes. Here are my images from LA (and Disneyland), and my last batch from my June 2015 America trip. Check them out!

North California

Following on from Colorado, I flew to San Jose. It has been a lifelong goal to get to check out San Francisco, and I was able to finally make that happen. We would be heading from SF down to LA over two days, and stopping off at various places on the way. I was blessed to get to stay with my friends Stacy and Errol, a lovely couple who live in San Jose and looked after me during that portion of my trip. North California was really an inspiring place for me, and I also got to visit a few little surf towns along the way, see some rocky californian coastlines and tick off seeing the Golden Gate Bridge. The Canon G7X is working wonders for me so far, Its my favourite pocket camera ever. Check out the images below!

Colorado

I’m spending the month of June in America, travelling and exploring with my good friend and skateboarding legend, William Spencer. I have a few work matters to attend to while I’m out here, but my main goal is to play the tourist card and see some cool stuff, have some fun and make connections. These images are from my time in Colorado, mostly around South Fork, where I stayed with William and family in a wooden cabin for a week. For my travels, Canon have hooked me up with one of the new G7X cameras. Every photo you see here has been shot on the G7X, then processed on my iPhone. It should give a good idea of the performance of the camera, and what is possible with just the bare essentials. I’ve got two more updates from the USA to come with more of my trip, so stay tuned!

Adriatic

I’ve had a hectic last few months. The main culprits being knee surgery, working with Canon and putting together new films for Ampisound. I managed to schedule some time to join the Inspire Tour for a few days during its stop at the Beach Freesports Festival in Francavilla al Mare, Italy. It was amazing to get to spend some time with so many athletes and friends, and I was able to shoot a few images while on the beach and during a day in Rome. I was also blessed to meet and get to know Alli, a swedish girl who is playing with the idea of modelling, so we took the opportunity to shoot a few images that are a new style for me. Tourist time!

Barcelona

Hot off the heels of my time in Madrid, I’m already back in Spain. This time, I took a long weekend to visit and shoot with my good friend and amazing spanish practitioner, Marc ‘Defo’ Torres. I had been to Barcelona before in 2010 for two days, but it was good to be able to take some real time to get to know the city and its parkour community. The thing I loved most about Barcelona was its feeling of space. Unlike most of the other european cities, Barcelona feels expansive and open (except for the old town of course). This gives the spots in the city a really good aestetic for filming, but also proved to be really cool for stills. Here are some of my point and shoot images during my time there…

Madrid

I’ve been working with swiss athlete, Jesse Peveril, on a new movement film as part of the promotion for his clothing company, Move with Love. We travelled to Madrid in Spain due to the epic locations, winter sun and relative dryness compared to the rest of europe. The film is shaping up nicely, but we will need to return to Madrid to finish it, as unfortunatelt Jesse suffered an injury during shooting. For now, here are a few images I shot with my point and shoot camera during our time there…

Istanbul

I’ve just got back from Istanbul, which was a real experience for me. It was the first time I’ve visited a country with a strong muslim presence, and it was inspiring to see all the mosques and hear the calls to prayer across the city each day. I feel like religion in the western world is slowly becoming less visible, as churches seem to be moving from chapels to big warehouse type buildings. Having the mosques dominate the Istanbul skyline set it apart from anywhere else i have visited, and the amount of culture there was something I will never forget. Here are a few of my favourites from my time away, and I’ll likely add a second batch of images shortly.

Washington DC

So we’ve made it to what is the final main stop of my east coast roadtrip. Its been a really eye opening experience and I feel like I’ve gotten to see a lot of American culture. DC was probably my most educational visit, where we got to see all of the monuments, museums and political buildings. Here are my faves from the day!