Happy Sunday! We looked at cities in last week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, this week, hosted by Tina of Travels and Trifle, we are showcasing the people we captured along our travels.

For this post, I will be focusing on the photos I took when I traveled to Japan in 2023 because in Japan, people are here, there, and everywhere.

I am starting with this photo from Nara. It was not my intention to capture people in this photo. I was going for the deer when the ladies in Traditional Japanese Kimono showed up and began feeding and petting the deer. I tried to stay away from the deer. In my opinion, they are fun to look at and photograph but I have a feeling that once I start petting one, more will come, and I have myself and my camera to protect.

I don’t know about you but I dislike posed photography. I dislike when someone asks me to take their picture and they are just standing there with two fingers raised. I feel there’s a time and place for that kind of photo, just not in a natural setting. In a natural setting, one should just be natural, instead of posing exaggeratingly for photos.

I think it’s what makes people watching that much more interesting sometimes like this fisherman in the middle of Lake Kawaguchiko. There’s always someone doing something.

Both photos were taken in Kyoto – the first one in Fushimi Inari and the other on the street near Kiyomizu Temple.

I thought about excluding the first photo. Fushimi Inari is one of the most popular shrines in Kyoto. Just about every YouTube I’ve watched recommended a visit to this shrine. It wasn’t rainy that day until we reached the shrine, then it started pouring like there was a hole in the sky. Everyone was prepared though and umbrellas began to pop open as we through the shrine.

Even with the lens hood on the camera, rainwater kept soaking the lens. The shrine is actually a one-way tunnel – one way in, one way out – and I was just about to capture the two orange tunnels when suddenly came these 2 girls. Too late. When I uploaded the photo onto the computer, I thought about deleting the photo at once but then I thought it did look pretty cool and, who knows, I might be able to use it one day.