Many of you know that I've just had a trip to Japan.  As exciting as it is to share the experience, it can be overwhelming when you try to tell the stories through photography.  Especially when you visit many unique and vastly different cities, the question that begs to jump out is "where do you start"?Well, hulling through all images and process and edit to make a 2012 calendar in itself can feel like a paramount project.  And yet, the remaining tasks seem a bigger mountain to climb.  (Side note: for those that know me or will get to know me, I do not like climbing mountains. :-))  And of course, I never forget my mission in this photographic journey - it's a beautiful world and I'm here to share the beauty the way I see it.  So, I decide to pick an image from an encounter that leaves the most impression to me on the trip.

This started when we ran into a real beauty while visiting the Ritsurin Park in Takamatsu.

Ritsurin Park is among the many beautiful parks/gardens that we've visited in Japan and is one of my favorites.  As I always say, people make part of the scenery anywhere you go.  When you have  great interaction with people at any locale, you end up liking this place for the fond memories.  I won't digress into too much details of what this Park is about as this will be the subject of my travel blog.  I just feel that it was my lucky day to have met Arisa with her hair dresser/make-up artist Doiko (I hope I didn't butcher her name. :P).

They were so nice to allow me to take portraits of Arisa while they were there for business.  Arisa was a natural and with little directions, she looks really good in this image.  A Japanese girl, in the beautiful kimono, with a real Japanese setting.  What an authentic experience! 

What do you think?