Returning from Japan with a camera and a full soul: reflections on my last photographic trip

It has been a year of reunion with travel photography, and I recently returned from my last photographic trip to Japan —with Artisal Travel Photography—, after a few days as intense as they are inspiring. Every trip leaves a different mark, but this one has had that point that has reconnected me with the creative side, and with street photography. Japan has this capacity: it makes you observe, think and capture with a renewed awareness.

What I value most about these trips is not only the locations or the light — which, obviously, are exceptional — but living it from the inside with the travel companions with whom I share each day. The conversations, the different rhythms, the way each one observes the same scene… all of this enriches the experience.

Going out to photograph in a group is useful for me to teach, as well as to learn and remember.

There are more exhausting days, weather that forces you to improvise and locations that are sometimes crowded, but iconic for a first trip to Japan for my travel companions.

But it is precisely in these aspects where the magic of photography happens: in the adaptation, the surprise and the way each person responds to the environment.

Our travellers in love with Shibuya

Every trip has moments that are transformed into images and remain in the memory. It is not just about photographing tourist sites, “hunting for postcards” that everyone then puts on Instagram. It is about living every moment of the trip and enjoying the places, capturing them with your own eyes. Stopping on a street and observing the daily life of the Japanese, running outside the tourist centers, conversations about photographic composition, technique, or resting to have a coffee with a view. It is these moments —and not just the iconic postcards— that define the trip.

And it is gratifying to see how everyone finds their own image: that photograph that summarizes a day, a place or a feeling. We hope that next year you will also want to sign up for our photographic trip, with Artisal Travel Photography, from November 15 to 29, 2026.

During the journey we visit iconic places like Matsumoto castle

One of the things that happens to me on these photographic trips is that, while I share what I know, I also take new perspectives with me. The questions, the different approaches, the doubts… all of this forces me to review processes and to explain in words the actions that I often do intuitively. Photography is a constant personal evolution.

There are places that seem to be created to be photographed, and Japan is one of them. And let’s not forget that our camera or part of our team is possibly Japanese. The light, the colors, the coexistence between the calm of rural places and the dynamism of big cities… everything has an aesthetic that pushes us to explore and look for new details. And as one of our companions on this last trip said, “everything is photographable”. Every corner is an invitation to stop, observe and capture.

Learning about photography as much as from Japanese culture.

I return with a camera full of images, but I don't shoot as much as I did years ago, because now above all I return with a head full of shared moments, learnings and new photographic sensations. This last trip has been a reminder of what I am truly passionate about: photography as an experience, as a way of being present and as a language that connects us with others.

And, as always, with the desire to return.

Final look back to Shibuya before next year.