The last time I visited Japan, I had a person walk into a scene I was working on photographing, and it changed my view of having people in my photos.  At the time I was annoyed, but the longer I watched, the more I realized the guy made the photo (look for the fisherman).  Well on this trip, I was looking for the *right* person to walk into different scenes, and as luck would have it, it was at a giant staircase that desperately needed a person for scale.

I don’t know what it is with staircases and Japan, but the ancient Japanese people liked their staircases.  This particular set of stairs goes up to the burial site of Emperor Meiji.  As I looked at it, I decided I wanted to shoot it in black and white (specifically infrared).  There were some young kids there running up the stairs, but it just wasn’t what I was after.  However, while I was sitting there working on the image, this old man comes up with a winter hat on that had a big poof on the top.  With infrared, you never quite know how colors will reflect the light, so as he approached the stairs I looked through and noticed that he was essentially glowing in the scene.  Excellent contrast to the dark looking stairs!  I waited till he made it partway up the stairs and started snapping away.  The guy was an absolute champ.  I never saw him stop once; he just took a slow and steady pace all the way up.

More from Japan next week!

–Dan Thompson