Last night for the second time in a week there is snow in Tokyo. Coming from New England it is funny to call this 'snow' as it is just a few flakes but this is a city with no infrastructure to combat snow. Citizens protect themselves with umbrellas and garden hoses are often used to melt the snow. There is no sanding or salting. Snow doesn't really accumulate much so it just basically becomes a bit wet mess. It was reported on the news this morning that there were 450 traffic accidents related to snow in Tokyo and the surrounding prefectures. eerie timing...

While I was reading THIS article in the Japan Times last night we had another small Earthquake of magnitude 5.3. The epicenter was Fukushima. The article said that a study released yesterday by researchers at the University of Tokyo's Earthquake Research Institute stating that there is now a 70% chance that Tokyo will be directly hit by a major tremor, magnitude 7.0 or higher, within the next 4 years. The likelihood in the next 30 years is 98%. So the message is basically 'sooner or later'. THIS is what Tokyo was like on March 11th last year feeling the shocks of the Tohoku Earthquake that had an epicenter was hundreds of miles away. I can't image what a direct hit would feel like...but I guess we'll see.

I think it is very beautiful when it snows in Tokyo...it brings a new look to the city.

When photographing snow you use a shutter speed of 1/125 of a second or faster and you can capture the flakes as they fall. In the above photo, I was focused on the train with an aperture of f/2.8 so I have a very shallow depth of field with only a few feet actually in focus. The snow is going to be out of focus but I want to make sure it is an out of focus circle vs. a line. If you want to see the snow as streaks then slow your shutter speed down to 1/30 of a second. You need to be careful with your White Balance when shooting snow as all of the bright white can tend to throw your White Balance off. This is a perfect time you would want to set a Custom White Balance.