Japan’s Hokkaido and Ou Mountains Photography Workshop

February 1, 2028: Arrival at Tokyo

Arrive at Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND), Tokyo, Japan before 4:00 PM today. Air travel delays are common. Please arrive early, possibly even the day prior, so you don’t miss any of the workshop.

Arrive in Tokyo today and make your way to our hotel at Haneda. After time to settle in and recover from your journey, we’ll meet as a group for introductions, an overview of the workshop, and a briefing on the days ahead. This is also a chance to prepare camera gear and make any final adjustments before we begin our journey north to Hokkaido the following morning.

February 2–3, 2028: Fly to Hokkaido, Explore Biei and Furano

With an early start, we travel together to the airport and fly to New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido. From here, we continue toward Biei and Furano, entering a landscape transformed by deep winter snow. We’ll photograph through the afternoon and into sunset, beginning around Shirogane, where the brilliant blue waters of the Biei River cut through deep snow and Shirahige Falls freezes into delicate curtains of ice. Snow-covered forests, mountain streams, and views toward the Tokachi peaks provide our first introduction to Hokkaido’s quieter, more intimate winter landscapes.

The following day is devoted to the wonderfully spare landscapes of Biei and Furano. Rolling farmland disappears beneath deep snow, reducing the countryside to gentle curves, lone trees, distant farm buildings, and narrow roads punctuating broad expanses of white. These landscapes are ideal for learning to work with negative space, shape, balance, and subtle tonal differences.

February 4, 2028: Scenic Stops Across Hokkaido

Today, we leave Biei and make the journey east toward the Akan and Lake Kussharo region, with approximately five to six hours of driving with photo stops along the way. Rather than treating the day as a mere transfer, we’ll keep our cameras close and stop whenever the landscape offers something compelling: lone trees, snow-covered roads, isolated buildings, winter forests, and graphic human elements can all become subjects as we cross Hokkaido.

February 5–6, 2028: Explore Lake Kussharo

Over the next two days, we explore the atmospheric winter landscapes of eastern Hokkaido, working between Lake Kussharo, Tsurui, and the crane country around Otowa Bridge.

Around the lake, open water, ice, snow, and rising steam create constantly changing scenes, with whooper swans often becoming living elements within the broader landscape. Elsewhere, red-crowned cranes gather among snowy fields, bare trees, and mist-filled river valleys, offering opportunities to photograph them within the wider landscape rather than as isolated wildlife subjects.

We’ll keep our schedule flexible, following the best combination of light, weather, mist, and snow. Finally, we continue to Kushiro for our final night on Hokkaido.

February 7, 2028: Return Flight to Tokyo, Image Review Session

After breakfast, we fly from Kushiro back to Tokyo and transfer to an airport hotel for the night. With the afternoon free from travel, we’ll have an extended image review session, giving us time to look closely at work from Hokkaido before we move to the entirely different landscape of the Japanese Alps.

February 8, 2028: Bullet Train to Yamagata, First Snow Forest Session

Early morning, we take the bullet train north toward Yamagata and the mountains of Tohoku. As we leave Tokyo behind, the landscape gradually changes, with increasingly deep snow, steep mountain valleys, and forests transformed by winter.

After arriving and settling into our hotel, we’ll head out for our first photography session in the snow-covered forests around Yamagata. This marks a distinct change from Hokkaido’s open horizons and isolated trees. Here, our compositions become tighter and more layered as we begin working with dense woodland, repeating trunks, snow, and the subtle separation of elements within a more complex landscape.

February 9, 2028: Photograph Snow Monsters at Mount Zao

Today we turn our attention to one of Japan’s most extraordinary winter phenomena: the juhyo of Mount Zao. Freezing moisture, heavy snowfall, and powerful mountain winds gradually encase the trees in immense layers of snow and ice, creating the surreal forms commonly known as “snow monsters.”

Reaching some of our photography locations requires an approximately 45-minute snowshoe descent through deep snow and uneven mountain terrain. Guests should be comfortable walking in snowshoes while carrying their camera equipment and spending extended periods outside in cold, windy conditions. The effort rewards us with the opportunity to work among the juhyo themselves, opening up intimate compositions and perspectives that are impossible from the more accessible viewpoints.

February 10, 2028: Explore Yamadera’s Winter Woodland and Architecture

At Yamadera, our photography shifts again, combining winter woodland, traditional architecture, and the surrounding mountain landscape. The temple complex climbs steeply through a forested mountainside, with stone steps, cedar trees, small shrines, gates, and snow-covered roofs creating layers of visual interest as we move higher. Rather than approaching Yamadera as a single landmark, we’ll use the entire setting as a photographic study in how human and natural elements interact.

The dense woodland offers opportunities for intimate compositions using trunks, branches, snow, and negative space, while the temple structures introduce strong lines, repeating details, and points of color within an otherwise muted winter palette. Higher viewpoints offer broader compositions across the valley and surrounding mountains, allowing us to photograph a mixture of details, environmental scenes, and wider landscapes throughout the day.

February 11, 2028: Final Photography in Yamagata, Return to Tokyo

Our final morning in Yamagata gives us another opportunity to photograph the region’s winter landscapes. We’ll use the conditions to determine where we can make the strongest images, whether that means returning toward Mount Zao, working within the forests, or exploring another nearby landscape.

After our final photography session, we begin our journey back to Tokyo and proceed to Haneda International Airport for our farewell dinner.

February 12, 2028: Departure

Flights out can be made anytime today.