I’ve taken many different images of sakura (cherry blossoms), from all sorts of angles and at various focal lengths, but there has been photo I’ve wanted to take for a while that I’ve had a hard time getting. Thankfully, while visiting Aomori Prefecture for a photography project recently, I found the perfect place to finally get this photo, which you can see below.
The photo was taken in a section of the moat around the Hirosaki Castle grounds. As the blossom petals fell into the water, the wind blew them across the top of the water. Since the petals were all fresh, they still had the lovely white/pink hue, which made the scene that much more beautiful. I especially loved that the brown lily pads had caught some of the sakura petals, so there was a mixture of both motion and stillness. It was the exactly the scene I had been looking for to get this shot!
This is also another good opportunity to show the power of Adobe Lightroom to simply but powerfully process a digital photograph. This image didn’t require a lot of time or details in Photoshop – just some simple controls in the Lightroom work space. One of the many reasons I love this software!
Camera: Nikon D610
Lens: Nikon 85mm f/1.8G
Filter: Hoya NDX400 Neutral Density Filter
Shot Info: f/8 | 30 Sec | ISO 125 | 85mm
Click Here To See A Larger Image
