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Sep 10 2018 12 Comments

An urban Tokyo forest

Urban facade versus urban reality?

tokyo forrest facade

Categorized: Photography

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Coli says

    9/10/2018 at 11:31 am

    That’s amazing! I wouldn’t have guessed that was fake. It looks like the forest is actually behind a set of windows. Nicely done again.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      9/10/2018 at 8:53 pm

      Thank you. Yeah, it’s surprisingly realistic looking. Or at least it was. Took the photo just in time as the forest has now gone…

      Reply
  2. Harry says

    9/10/2018 at 4:37 pm

    This is very interesting. Kinda surreal and totally real in a way but also very sad……..

    Reply
    • Lee says

      9/10/2018 at 8:59 pm

      It certainly struck me as interesting, but yeah, the rather bedraggled fella passing by does give it a certain sadness.

      Reply
  3. john says

    9/11/2018 at 8:15 am

    That’s a cost effective way of improving perceived air quality, but personally I like those little tubs of greenery.
    Is the fella wary of tree spirits or is there a leaky gutter overhead?

    Reply
    • Lee says

      9/11/2018 at 9:41 am

      Yeah, in a city with as much concrete as Tokyo, real greenery is always the way to go.

      Probably more Mother Nature’s spirit as it was the beginning of last week’s typhoon. With that in mind though, one benefit of the fake trees is that there was never any danger of them being uprooted!

      Reply
  4. cdilla says

    9/11/2018 at 6:00 pm

    That is a remarkable photograph. Clever framing. Given your Haikyo interests it does take a while to convince oneself those are not real trees. I though at first it was taken out where that abandoned cable car is.
    I’d like a display that size showing a suitable resolution feed from Tokyo 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      9/12/2018 at 9:40 am

      Thank you very much. It does look surprisingly real, doesn’t it? In that respect it came out way better than I expected. Good call on the old cable car too. Definite similarities.

      Yes. Likewise, although with different feeds from around the world for different times of the day.

      Reply
  5. Tobias says

    9/11/2018 at 11:30 pm

    May I ask: Do you use presets like VSCO sometimes or do you just use a bit of Photoshop here and there?

    I am starting out with VSCO at the moment and found it tremendously helpful – I’m shooting with a Leica Q and while the images don’t really need much work, there is something addicting to those presets.

    And awesome shot as always, by the way! 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      9/12/2018 at 9:53 am

      Thank you!

      Yes, of course. 99% of the time I use Lightroom, and really only go into Photoshop if there’s say a dust spot on the image that Lightroom isn’t getting rid of properly.

      Even with Lightroom it tends to be the basic stuff such as exposure, highlights etc. On this particular image I also bumped up the clarity a fair bit, it really brought out the details of the trees. Recently been utilising the dehaze feature too which is really useful.

      As for presets, I don’t use them as such, but I do use Nik Software suite through Lightroom. There are a few options in it that I use regularly, although I generally alter the settings for each photo. These are only minor tweaks though. The bulk is done in Lightroom. Does that make sense?

      There are so many options I think it’s best just to go with what works for you. Over time I think everybody settles on a system and set of software that they feel comfortable with, and which produces the desired results.

      Oh, and nice choice with the Q. I’d really like to try one, but having already got an M, there’s no way I can justify (or sadly afford) an additional Leica. How do you find it? As good as you expected?

      Reply
      • Tobias says

        9/12/2018 at 6:14 pm

        Thank you so much for all the additional info! I’m always interested in how professional photographers go about their work!

        The Q is a godsend! I had to sell several organs to buy it, but it was very much worth it! 🙂
        It’s a beast! It’s super fast, the EVF is really bright with no lag whatsoever and the images are crystal clear and really sharp.
        Shooting with it is just pure fun and the fixed 28 mil lens completely kills the need to buy other lenses, which my wife is really thankful for! haha.

        Reply
        • Lee says

          9/12/2018 at 8:38 pm

          You are very welcome. Hope it was useful.

          Excellent. That matches with everything else I’ve read about it. A very good camera that produces beautiful results. The only trouble is it makes me want to try one even more!

          Reply

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