I got carried away at Kameido Tenjin, but that’s not the only reason. I was wondering where else I could go to photograph wisteria flowers, so I decided to visit the Jindai Botanical Park in Chofu.
As Golden Week was approaching, the park was in full bloom with late spring flowers, making it a bit overwhelming, but I stayed true to my original plan and headed straight for the wisteria trellis!
From experience, a telephoto lens is useful for photographing wisteria. So the equipment I brought this time was the LUMIX G9PROII, which is strong in telephoto, and two “holy grail” lenses: the Leica DG12-60mm and Leica DG50-200mm.
I quickly snapped this beautiful photo of the pale purple wisteria trellis.
I’m not confident in identifying the variety, but I think this might be Noda-Nagafuji. The high reproducibility of the difficult wisteria color tones, the sharp focus plane and soft foreground and background blur creating a sense of depth, and the volume expressed through compression effects—all came out exactly as intended, making me very pleased with the photo.
At the wisteria trellis in the park on this day, I also enjoyed two other varieties of flowers: yellow (probably Kibana Fuji) and a slightly darker blue-purple (I’m not sure of the variety… it’s not Yae Fuji, though).
The wisteria trellis itself looks like this when photographed normally, and it’s a naturally beautiful scene with seasonal flowers…
These days, I can’t help but think about the overwhelming, almost excessive volume of wisteria trellises at places like Ashikaga Flower Park (I visited there two years ago), and I want to capture them as richly and gorgeously as possible.
I experimented quite a bit with how to shoot them this time, and the results are the two photos at the beginning and others like this one.
Changing the subject, bumblebees are a common sight in gardens where wisteria flowers bloom. As was the case at Kameido Tenjin Shrine the other day, on this day as well, they were quietly drifting through the air, and I didn’t notice them until they suddenly entered my field of vision, causing me to startle and dodge them repeatedly. Why are bumblebees attracted to wisteria flowers?
Apparently, only strong bumblebees can suck the nectar from the tightly closed wisteria flowers. For bumblebees, the nectar of wisteria flowers is a treasure that isn’t disturbed by other insects, and for wisteria, bumblebees are the only ones they rely on for pollination—a “mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship.” I learned this recently.
In this park, there are also several trees planted independently without trellises alongside the wisteria trellises.
The flowers had lost some of their vigor, but I was able to get close enough to capture them, which was still quite special.
Well, that satisfies my desire to photograph wisteria flowers for now.
I’ll take a look around the garden and snap some photos of other flowers as well.
