Relaxing Sunset Street Photography In Tokyo, Japan
During my time in Tokyo, I spent a lot of time doing street photography at night. There were also some days when the weather was mostly overcast. As a result, I didn’t do as much street photography during golden hour as I would like.
But I did manage to capture a few sunset images that I’d like to share in this blog.
During my first full day in Tokyo, I visited the Shibuya Hikarie Observation Deck to get a nice bird’s eye view of the Shibuya crossing and the high-rise buildings surrounding the area. Because it was my first time in this area, I wanted to stay throughout golden hour and into blue hour so I could capture some of the night lights.
I have spoken about this a number of times, but I love the way that the light from the sunset spills into the different alleyways and narrow streets of Tokyo. The light will sometimes hit spots on the street, or certain parts of the buildings.
If you’re looking to do street photography at sunset in Tokyo, I would try to plan out a different location each day of your trip. You’ll find that some locations get really crowded during sunset, while others are almost completely isolated during the evening.
I took the photo below on my last full day in Tokyo and I had never taken a proper sunset photo of the bridge I would constantly pass through on my way to Asakusa. There were some beautiful clouds in the sky but the sun had already started to set over the buildings, so this was taken a bit closer to blue hour.
I actually decided to create a few masks in editing and I lowered the temperature of the sky. I’m pretty happy with how the final image turned out. It doesn’t have the golden color that I usually bring to my sunset photos, but I think it works more by contrasting a colder temperature of the sky with the warm colors of the buildings.
The next time I visit Japan, I’d love to do more street photography at sunset. But I’m still happy with the golden hour images I was able to capture.
