hirosaki: sakura day trip

One of the biggest events in Japan is the blooming of sakura. Japanese people love sakura! And they should be cause it really is beautiful and only lasts for about a two weeks. Two weeks isn't bad, but maximum bloomage is probably for 2 days! Traditionally, it symbolizes cyclic nature of well..........you guessed it, Nature! As the flowers bloom, it marks the essence of spring and symbolically... life. When the petals fall it isn't really considered death, but the natural state the sakura must undergo until its' rebirth. During WWII, it was said that painting sakura on warplanes or carrying a sakura branch while flying a kamikaze mission wasn't uncommon (wiki).

Sure, every plant/flower/tree in nature will go through the same cycle, but it is especially short lived in the beautiful sakura that makes it so special. I mean, it gets the entire nation off their booties to go outside to do a little flower watchin'! Sakura viewing has become so popluar that it's kind of a national festival. People picnic in parks, evening filled with booze, amusement rides and food stands are set up to enhance the celebration and viewing pleasure. It's a big ordeal and something that I'm going to miss when I leave Japan.

So I tried my very best to go out and get the best sakura pictures I could. I didn't want to shoot normal sakura pictures because I wanted to improve my photography beyond normal. In Aomori, the best place to take sakura pictures is........(drum roll)..... Hirosaki! Of course it isn't the only place, but Hirosaki has a castle and is considered top 3 in all of Japan for sakura. I tried to do it justice but wow....shooting sakura isn't really my thing. I found it quite boring and there are so many people there that it's really hard to shoot because everyone is shooting! Crazy. Also flowers isn't my favorite subject. Done well its beautiful, but I've haven't found the interest yet (I don't own a macro lens and probably won't..oh well).

Anyways here are my day pictures in Hirosaki. If I remember correctly, the day was cloudy but warm...wish I had blue sky to take advantage of my polarizer. But I can't complain since the sun did poke out every so often and of course I tried to pimp the sun whenever I could.