Ema are wooden votive tablets found in all temples, used as lucky charms or to express gratitude to the God. There are pictures of animals or the people write on them. Below there are Omikuji, oracles written on paper. People give an offert and have this oracle giving advice on various matters, like exams, work, love .... After reading it people tide them up to a brunch or in organized space in the jinja courtyard.

In the Sensoji jinja compound there are many buildings, small and big temples, there is always a lot of people visiting and praying even in the small temples. All Asakusa area is full of turists, and around temples especially. This  was my first visit in Winter 05 and was raining, shame for the grey mood, but the whole area is very nice and interesting.

In Asakusa there are many old theatre where performs young and old artists, comedians of the traditional genre of manzai (dialogue between two actors) and rakugò (monologue) ofthen also some sexy interludes are performed.

One of this was Takeshi Kitano, he wrote a wonderful book, his autobiography, called Asakusa Kid, where he describe his youth, his difficult beginnings, his foundamental encounter with an old actor that became his master and mentor.

Here in the picture a theatre in the Asakusa area, is not the one where Takeshi worked, or may be ...

Monument, usually, are celebration of important people, heroes or significant events in history. But why not celebrate somthing that changed life of millions of youngsters and less young people all over the word: the walkman and his headphone, something that become a philosophy of life.

Forgive me but I forgot to look for the author of this pop sculpture, if not splendid, is amusing and fun. I found this monument in Shinagawa, a new area of Tokyo, is on claimed land, it was sea and the industrious Japanese people decided to strech their town into the see, they build a wonderfull modern area with canal and nice view on the ocean.

Do you like it?

This is Tokyo Tower is  is 332.6 m (1,091 ft) tall, is the tallest structure in Japan and is located in Shiba Park. With the antenna is 8 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, from wich take not only ispiration but the design, a bit slimmer, however it weighs only 4000 tons, instead of 7,300 of the French tower, it was completed in 1958, 69 years after the French sister. Are the Japanese satisfied by this? Not at all, they are working at a new and toller tower, to be opened in 2011, the Sumida Tower. I have no pictures of this .... yet, forgive me.

On the Tokyo Tower there is an aquarium, a wax museum, two panoramic decks but not at the top, it is possible to walk up 600 steps to the lower one. It is also a television and radio antenna. From the two decks 150 and 250 meters) the wiew is great and in clear days can see the Mount Fuji.

Tis is a Buddist priest celebrating a ritual of purification in Noghijinja in Asakasa, Tokyo. Is a great small temple on an hill ands surrounded by a park with very old trees in a modern residencial and commercial area of Tokyo. The big ves with large sleeves is called Hō. The wooden laquered clogs are called Asagutsu.

The Omikuji are little paper folded into a stripe and tied up to wires or little structures in Temples in Japan. The paper have an oracle written on it telling the future or giving advice on different subjects like love, work, study, family. Visiting a Jinja, especially on New Year's day, people ask for advice or fortune telling, after giving a small donation, people take a wooden box and after shaking it they extract from a little hole a numbered wooden stick and the Omikuji corresponding to that number is given by an attendant. After reading it, the paper is folded into a stripe and tied to a structure or a tree in the temple ground, in this temple, Nogijinja in Akasaka, Tokyo was shaped like a ball, interesting effect.

This is Green Tea Icecream witt a spalsh of Soy Beans marmelade, I love it, Matcha Icecream is very popular in Japan in many different shape and makers, even Haagen Dazs make a fantastic green tea icecream, unfortunately they are not selling it abroad. In kosks or supermarkets there are icecream machines with many exotic flavors, like sesame, I like it very much and the colour is weird, dark grey .... but is good. The presentation is always fantastic in Japan, the sense of aestetic is very stron in Japanese culture and tradition, always simple, clean, essential, we says minimalistic. I'm fashinated by this common sense of Japanese peolpe, the care and love they put in every little thing, arigatou!

At Shinjuku there ia a great department store Takashiyama, take half of the glass building with red sign, the other half is home of Tokyu Hands, the DIY paradise! 5 storey (or mte) where you can find everything from camping and travel, home funishing and cooking, art, painting, drawing, pottery making, lighting, shoes making, wood craft ...... I really love it, I can spend hours looking and browsing trough the never ending shelfs.

Again about streets lights, here you can see coloured lights to light a walking path in between a building site! Just out of Shijuku underground and train station in Tokyo. Is very nice the clock tower, a bit old, surrounded by very modern glass buildings. And there are more renovation work in progress.

The sun is going down and a lots of lights comes to life and give a peculiar, very unique taste to the city landscape. This is a almost completely modern area, but in small side roads you can find still some small and old building, few are private homes and more are restaurants or small comercial buildings. 

In Tokyo and in general in big town in Japan, Light at night are very distinguishing. The myriad of neon lights fron advertising, shops and offices light roads very much, can shoot pictures with my camera hand held at medium iso speed (320) and have a good result. Here the Christmas decoration of a tree, very nice the blue color, just outside the underground station at Shinjuku.

In 2005 I went for the first time in Japan for winter holiday and New Year. This is the real celebration for Japanese family and Christmas is just an excuse or pretext for business to sell (like in the old continent and America as well). This photo was taken from the hotel lobby, in Shinjuku, we went out and started to snow, unusual in Tokyo, when we got back in the evening, the naked trees and the little "garden" was all white, a real surprise to see the dramatic change in the landscape. I did not taken a photo of the new landscape Framed in the window. Shame on me!

Here we are preparing to land in Narita Airport, Tokyo, Japan. The weather was great and the temperature mild for the season, this winter. Tis picture is old, was shoot in 2004, my first Winter visit, but this year was good weather as well.

In Japan Christmas is just a commercial opportunity not a real festivity (is here different?). New year eve and new year first day are the real religious and spiritual celebration, important and with a real religious meaning to the Japanese people. Is the moment to gather the whole family together. This arrangment is a traditional good wish for the new year: bamboo, pine, straw and oranges, of course the white paper stripe folded in a ritual way symbolize the good wishes.

I wish you all the best!

On Sunday in the central and more shopping crazy district of Ginza, in Tokyo is a no traffic zone and a lot of people walk in the street watching shop windows of the most elegant and expensives fashion labels of all around the world. Also the Kabuki Theatre is there, huge department store like Mitsukoshi and Matsuya, a huge Mac store, Sony have his five floors showroom, inside wich they give hospitality to BMW cars showroom! And many more.

Of course the main interst is the fashion competition, especially women exibit great and expencive outfits, no matter if traditional or western style, just do your best to impress.

In this case she succeeded in impress me! Not only her beauty is stunning, her skin white and very little make up add to her beauty, in addition her outfit is exquisitely elegant.

This is Kris, she is an artist and art curator in Tokyo and that means it works with artists and galleries and private people to organize exibitions, public spaces ....

I meet her in Milano in Autumn 06. She is very intelligent, full of energy, very beautyful and has a fantastic smile! Just irresistible.....

I took this portrait in studio using a Fuji GX680 with Sinar 54 Digital back, that has an incredible quality. I used studio flashes; to achieve this natural light feeling, I used a big white fabric on a frame to soften the light. I love shallow focus, so full aperture f5,6 on my Fujinon 150mm. Great camera and great lens. I just can't stop shooting her and I took hundreds of shoots. The big problem is to choose the right shoot out of hundreds.

In 2003 I went for the first time to Japan and in Tokyo I had this pleasant surprise in Shijuku area, finding this big statue of American Pop artist Robert Indiana. Conceived in  1969, times when the United States was involved by the Vietnam War, this LOVE sculpture became a symbol for Peace and a logo printed on thousand of  postres, t-shirts and became in the '70s also the cover for the famous book Love Story and the poster of the movie from this book. Shijuku is a very busy district, but here is between very tall office blocks an at that time no much people was around leaving us time to shoot this pictures with no hurry. This monument is 3,60 meter high and weighs 1,700 hilos of alluminium! Is not the only one of his kind, is a muliple and there are many of it in different colours around the word, well done Mr. Indiana.

Dancer, actor and teacher Hanayagi san in his studio in Tokyo in summer 2007. All images are taken in natural light coming from a big window taking the whole room side and filtered by shoji, outside was very sunny and very hot. I left some neon light on the ceiling on to soften the shadows but keep the natural back light feeling.

Here Hanayagi san is performing a traditional dance with a fan, wearing a very formal outfit, black silk kimono called montsuki and hakama, a kind of very  wide pants. The small decoration on the chest and sleeves are called kamon, is the family crest.

This is my friend Kumiko, she lives in Tokyo and in November 2006 she came in Italy with a friend and we met in Torino. She is very beautyful and sexy, is tall and she likes good food and drinks. We went to Rivoli, a small medioeval village near Torino to visit the Castle on an hill top, now is a fantastic modern art museum, great collection, great location and great view over Torino on one side and the mountains (of the Olimpics) on the other side.  http://www.castellodirivoli.it/ 

After the culture we went to a little bar in the small streets of the village to drink a very good Italian spumante, sparkling white wine of Piemonte area, very good, can compete with French Champagne.

I shoot this portrait with my new Nikon D2Xs with the 85mm f1.4, I was very happy about the result, fantastic colors, very nice contrast and of course sharpness. Natural light inside the bar, very little dept of field at f1.4! This lens is fantastic, 90% of my pictures are taken with this lens.

Hanayagi sensei (master) is a traditional Japanese actor, dancer and teacher, I took this photos this Summer 2007 in his studio in Tokyo. He was teaching to this lovely girl named Mina, how a girl should walk in the traditional dance. She wear a very nice dark green yukata (cotton summer kimono) with lot of little bunnies drawn on it, she is beautiful and elegant. 

How to use a fan is central in Japanese dance education and outside the stage too, everybody use fan in Japan, men as well and so men should move differently from girls, unless.....