It is a sad day when you leave home, which is what Tokyo has been for most of the past 5 years.

It is an awesome day when you leave home, the whole world open to you, new people to meet, new places to see.

I will still be Tokyo for another few weeks then Erin and I are heading to England to visit my parents, after that the plan gets a little bit unclear, though it will definitely involve making pictures.

Stay tuned!

We spent some time around Shinjuku and made some really strong frames.

It was really refreshing to be able to work without time pressure or a set agenda and see what came.

From Japan to Canada (twice), Korea and Thailand I’ve been lucky enough to meet some awesome people and share some exceptional moments this year.

Through cancelled flights, snowstorms and earthquakes I’ve been certain to remember how fortunate I have been and to keep a smile on my face.

Thank-you to everyone who helped make 2011 what it was.

Let’s hope 2012 will be even more exceptional.

This year we got a good crop of basil and coriander which we are drying over the oven.

This summer we spent three weeks in Thailand, I decided to travel light and only took an X100 with me.

Sadly after the first 10 days, the X100 and seawater came into contact with each other.

It’s fair to say that it did not go well for the camera. I still managed to get some great memories captured.

It was awesome to see two very different families and groups of friends come together to celebrate two people’s love for each other. The outstanding staff at the Narita Nikko hotel helped make sure everyone felt well looked after (they also managed to keep me hydrated).

Things started off, with getting ready at the hotel. I have never seen a Kimono put on as efficiently and precisely as the ladies managed to do Kathleen’s

Then it was off to the temple for the ceremony.

Before heading back to the reception venue for dinner and some heartfelt speeches.

After opening the sake barrel there was time to change into a gorgeous wedding gown.

For even more pictures from the day, take a look over here. Thank you for letting me share your big day with you.

This coming weekend I will be lucky enough to spend the day with Hiro and Kathleen who enjoy getting married to each other so much that they’ve had two weddings already and the Japanese one is still to come. The first time we met they had just completed the paperwork at the city hall and we made some portraits.

After a break to go over to Kathleen’s native Canada they are back in Tokyo and this weekend they will have a Japanese wedding ceremony which should be exceptional.

I for one am excited…

Summer has hung around for a long time here in Tokyo this year, but it seems like maybe it is coming to an end.

It was good to sign off the year on a high note, with good food, friends and music (with a pretty awesome view over the city).

There are some pretty exciting things on the horizon for this winter, so it’s not all bad news…

Because I’m not going to keep this one under wraps for long….

Caitlin and Sasha’s wedding in Quebec, Canada went off in spectacular fashion. I’m going to wait for them to get back from their honeymoon before I share too much of their day but here is one that I’m sure they won’t mind everyone seeing….

I’m finally back in Tokyo after an awesome trip to Thailand (more of that to come shortly).

I can’t get too comfortable though because I only just have enough time to get my suits cleaned, my batteries recharged (and to replace the camera casualties of the trip) before it’s off to Montreal for Sasha and Caitlin’s big day.

Some of you might remember Caitlin as the maid of honour at Greg and Marie’s wedding back in January, I’m pretty sure I’m going to have fun…

Thankfully we were able to give Steph a great sendoff with good food, great company and some not too terrible singing…

Hopefully we can catch up again in the future.

All of the pictures from this night were taken with the X100, which once again amazed me with how well it was able to handle the extremely low light. While the reproduction of colours at such a high ISO (6400 mostly) was not exceptional, a quick conversion to black and white fixes everything. I even find the grain quite pleasing…

More pictures can be seen here

I seem to be processing a lot of black and white images recently, I guess these things go in cycles…

This past weekend the Japan Association for Refugees Tohoku disaster relief program held a fundraising evening at M-Bar in Tokyo. I was asked if I could help out with some photographic coverage of the event. I was happy to oblige and came away with some great coverage of what was a hugely successful event.

The theme of the evening was bright colors and that was definitely what was on display. Thank you to everyone who was involved in making the evening a huge success….

More pictures can be seen over here

Tokyo may be home to a huge number of people but it is full of small intimate places where groups of people can gather, enjoy each other’s company and eat well. One such place is La Bicocca an awesome Italian restaurant in Setagaya-Ku. Last night the Tokyo family convened on La Biococca to bid farewell to one of my favourite people in Tokyo.

Kim has been with us for quite a while now, but unfortunately she has decided that the time is right to finally finish her masters degree and she is heading back to her native NYC.

I guess it means I have someone to stay with when I go to visit…

The giant Bhudda…

Yesterday I got to enjoy some Japanese history and a nice dose of sunshine on a visit to Kamakura. My love affair with the X100 is continuing as I was abe to enjoy taking photos all day without having to carry several tons of gear with me…

It would appear that spring is definitely with us here in Tokyo, and it is that lovely time when the sun is warm but the wind is cool.

Erin and I took advantage of that and spent most of today outside. I hope everyone is having an awesome golden week and that you got chance to spend some of it outside.

Nature can be such a fickle mistress, showing her awesome power and destructive force one minute, yet reminding us of her softer side with the beautiful cherry blossom and warm sunshine that is gracing Tokyo at the moment.

Hopefully there will more of the latter and less of the former for the rest of 2011

Ever cloud, and this is a huge one which still hangs over Japan, has a silver lining and for us that meant both Erin and I ending up with some time off simultaneously. Not wanting to waste the opportunity we headed west to Busan in South Korea for some much needed rest and relaxation.

Travelling light meant that I couldn’t take my usual cameras with me however I am lucky enough to have one of Fuji’s new X100 cameras which I wanted to really nail down. I’m slowly but surely falling in love with this little masterpiece, especially the viewfinder which is truly a work of genius. I just can’t wait for Fuji and Adobe to get together and let me process the RAW files as frankly working with .jpgs just feels clunky and backwards. Look for a real review to come soon.

All in all we had a great time, with lots of outstanding food and plenty to see and do. It had been almost 5 years since I left Korea and I definitely don’t plan on waiting that long before I head back again…

Louis and Annie both really have run away to live with the circus, unfortunately this means they often go months between seeing each other.

Last week was one of the few times that they were in the same city at the same time and we went to make some pictures. We started off in Yoyogi Koen and worked our way through Meji Jingu Temple, being careful to avoid the ever vigilant security guards, finishing up in Shinjuku, all in all a wonderful time was had by everyone.

I’ve known Marie for almost 6 years now, longer than I’ve been photographing weddings so it was a great pleasure to be able to share such an important day with her and her (now enlarged) family.

As for the wedding, well there was knitting, bowling and kazoos what more needs to be said?

“So I’d really like you to photograph my wedding”

“Sure, it’s going to be on the beach in Thailand, right?”

“No, Moncton, Canada, in January…”

This fateful exchange, with my friend Marie, lead to one of my most memorable trips abroad, almost for all the wrong reasons.

I have never, nor ever will be late for a wedding, I absolutely refuse to let that happen no matter what, but when I staggered off my overnight flight from Tokyo to Toronto and was told “no flights” I was a bit worried that my finely crafted plan wasn’t coming together.

Apparently the entire east coast of Canada was in the grips of blizzard and nothing was moving so I was stuck in Toronto. Thankfully Air Canada were able to arrange a hotel and after a hot shower and a night of laying in bed I arrived back at Toronto airport bright and early.

I explained that I really needed to get to Moncton to the ground staff who were once again really helpful however all they could do was book me onto the 11:00 flight and hope.

After checking my bags and heading through security (a process I was to get good at over the course of the day) I waited nervously at the gate, until around 10:30 when the “on time” marker flashed and flipped to a red “cancelled”. There was an immediate groundswell of people heading to customer service to rebook their flights.

“Next flight is at 12:00″ I am told.

12:00 – Moncton — Cancelled….

13:15 – Moncton — Cancelled…

I was starting to get a little nervous as the rehearsal dinner was a little over 30 hours away and I was stuck, in an airport, 3,000km away.

I started looking for alternative plans, widening the possible destinations, St John, Halifax, anywhere in the Maritimes. Apparently the whole area was closed. It was time to consider plan B.

Marie had mentioned that her maid of honour was driving from Montreal on the Friday, it wasn’t ideal but at that point I would take what I could get. A few phone calls later, a $780 plane ticket and a fifth trip through security I was booked on two flights, one to Moncton and one to Montreal. The Moncton one was cancelled…

Time since I’d slept 60 hours, time to the wedding, 36 hours, coffee based drinks consumed, several…

I arrived in Montreal at 10pm on Thursday, managed to find the only cab driver in Montreal who doesn’t know his own city and managed to meet up with Caitlin and her fiance Sasha.

On one hand I wouldn’t be getting to spend any time before the wedding getting acclimatized, on the other it was time for a roadtrip!

Here in Japan we are able to keep most of our snow where it belongs, on mountains, for skiing. Canada it would appear has far less well disciplined snow, this stuff was everywhere and not just a few inches here and there, we were talking feet of it.

Thankfully the roads were clear and we arrived just in time to make the rehearsal from where I headed to my hotel room and slept straight through until my alarm at 6am the next day to go and catch the girls getting ready…