Visiting Kyoto during the late November autumn foliage season to take photos is downright reckless, especially given the city’s already strained state from overtourism. As a basic precaution, I made a point to never rely on city buses, instead using the subway, taxis, and my own two feet for getting around. This naturally limited my destinations: Day 1 was Nanzen-ji Temple near Keage Station, and Day 2…
Kyoto Imperial Palace Gardens near Marutamachi Station.
The Garden is great for leisurely strolls across its vast grounds, but even so, under Kyoto’s current powerful tourist magnetism, it was this crowded.
This vivid red, yellow, and green gradient under the blue sky is truly magnificent. No wonder it draws crowds.
Across the vast grounds, the trees’ coloration varies quite a bit. But conversely, that means you can find trees at their peak foliage all over the place. Wandering freely with my LUMIX S1IIE and SIGMA 20-200mm, shooting as I pleased. For certain reasons, the photos shown here are uncorrected for various aberrations.
Like this one,
This too, a magnificent giant ginkgo tree that stood out from afar.
This maple was incredible too. Its color was so intense, you’d want to tell it to tone down the red a bit.
Of course, getting close to take the shot is important too. It was a bit tricky to shoot against a bright background, but I tried to capture the bright atmosphere of the garden itself. How about this?
Looking down at the ground, I found fallen fruit, allowing me to capture this late autumn scene.
It’s not related to autumn leaves, but I managed to get a nice shot of the stone torii gate of Benten Goddess Shrine.
Outside the Imperial Gardens, across Karasuma Street, stands a church building radiating presence, alongside a gleaming ginkgo tree and an autumn-like blue sky.
The great weather put me in a good mood and I got a lot of good shots, so if I keep rambling on, this post will get way too long.
I’ll wrap it up here with a gorgeous maple leaf photo.
And so, it was a bright late autumn day at Kyoto Imperial Park.
