I came to this place with one of my worst plans, but it totally turned out well!
I tried to get reservations here via the bilingual concierge at the Ritz-Carlton in Tokyo, and even though he was very resourceful, he said it was 100% full. But I decided to go anyway and knock on every door of every ryokan until I found a room. I knew it would be hard because nobody speaks English in these places. Anyway, after I knocked on the door of ryokan #4 I finally found a room! Even better, they had private baths fed by all the steaming water from the nearby hot springs. It was incredible to be soaking in steaming hot mineral water while watching snow fall all around me. Thank-you universe, you worked things out great!
What’s better than spending the evening in an adorable Japanese snowy town, taking photos for most of the night, then heading back to get in some natural hot springs with an Asahi? Not much, I tell ya… not much. I was happy that I decided to stay here two nights rather than rush it. I don’t like being rushed from place to place, and I love the idea of ending the day in the hot pools, laughing with random Japanese people.
My first trip after things calm down a little will be to visit the family and then I’ll probably go to Japan! 🙂 I’ll probably stay in a bunch of my old favorite spots as well get out into the countryside like this again. This magical area is in Ginzan Onsen.
In today’s photo, you’ll see I used the technique I mention in last week’s exclusive Passport Sunday how-to video. I love how it turned out on this one, which I feel is sort of a combination of landscape and architecture.
The Processing of the Onsen
I think you’ll really enjoy today’s how-to video which is a combination of HDR and the new filtering technique!
This area of Japan was one of my latest discoveries right before Covid Corona 19 kicked in. I had decided to spend some extra time exploring the snowy recesses from the north. This is actually the place that inspired Spirited Away, if you’re a Japanese Anime geek like me… it’s called Ginzen Onsen and I stayed right over there on top of that cool old Japanese cottage. Down underground was a little network of beautiful, natural onsens all fed by hot natural mineral water. It was incredible. I was the only non-Japanese person in there, and no one else I saw spoke any English, so there was just a lot of nodding and smiling, which I interpreted as, “Yeah, this is really awesome, fellow human!”
If you’re a passport member, then today you get my newest video I just made in Japan about the creation of photos from this location:
Ginzan Onsen How-To
Here’s some of the behind the scenes and my thoughts on composition and story-telling around these shots. And, thanks again for being a Passport member! Btw, hint hint… it’s a good gift to get for a friend! 🙂
My original plan was to stay here for two nights, but I ended up just staying one night. It was actually a very small little town and you could easily see the whole thing in just half a day. I am glad I stayed the night though because everyone really clears out around sunset to get the bus back to the main town.
Today I’m sharing a free Passport video with everyone. If you’re a Passport Member, then you get access to over 100 of these videos and a new one every Sunday! Some of my favorite ones are the six videos I released from Antarctica where you get to see all sorts of behind-the-scenes tomfoolery!
How To Video from Ginzan Onsen
Here’s a video I recently made that shows how I edited a photo from a location very close to where I took today’s daily photo. Of course, I used Aurora HDR 2019 to do all the editing.
Daily Photo – Ginzan Onsen
I came to this place with one of my worst plans, but it totally worked out!
Planning for this Japan trip was very difficult because I was going to many remote towns that a) do not take online booking b) where I stay in small hotels where no one speaks English. This makes getting reservations directly almost impossible!
I tried to get reservations via the bilingual concierge at the Ritz-Carlton in Tokyo, and even though he was very resourceful, he said it was 100% booked. But I decided to go anyway and knock on every door of every ryokan until I found a room. I knew it would be hard because nobody speaks English in these places. Anyway, after I knocked on the door of ryokan #4 I finally found a room! Even better, they had private baths fed by all the steaming water from the nearby hot springs. It was incredible to be soaking in steaming hot mineral water while watching snow fall all around me.
