When
it comes to filming, Mount Fuji can be as difficult
to work with as Val Kilmer!
One late winter's
Saturday morning, I purchased the cheapest JR train day pass
(¥4,000) at Nagoya station with the hope of a leisurely
clickety-clack to the Yamanashi prefecture to photograph and
film Mount Fuji in what I believed to be one of the best times
of the year. The local JR trains are great if you seek transportation
which don't require you to personally brake, accelerate, have
any sense of direction or fork out hundreds of dollars to
get from here to there. Sure, the Shinkansen is the closest
thing Japan has to a teleportation device, but it teleports
money from your bank balance even quicker, so keep an eye
on that...back to the story...
Four hours later and itching with anticipation not only to
see Mount Fuji, but eager to get off the wonky standing room
train car, a middle aged woman excitedly broke society's unwritten
no talking on the train rule by pointing and exclaiming
about what could only be Mount Fuji. I leaned my 186cm frame
down to the window and I wasn't prepared for what I saw; covered
in a light fog and appearing as an impossibly massive apparition,
Mount Fuji had unveiled its ghostly self only a few kilometers
from the JR train line. No sooner had I switched on my camera
to capture this incredible scene than the Fuji train station
blocked my view: Oh well, there will be plenty more where
that came from.
After inhaling lunch, it was time to board some more public
transportation and head to a prime spot for filming and photography.
Sure enough, a park with unusually early blooming cherry blossoms
provided an ideal location. In only an hour later, the ghostly
veil of fog had lifted, leaving the world's most recognizable
volcano to stand tall against a sky blue background...
...for a while.
Thirty minutes after setting up and shooting film it was as
though Mount Fuji had grown tired of camera lenses and awestruck
eyes, and seemingly turned its summit crater into a giant
vacuum, drawing in thick cloud in which it enveloped its entire
self. Upon my return to the bus, I saw numerous aspiring Fuji
photographers with a look of disdain on their fresh eyes as
they absorbed the scene before them: Fuji-san had tucked itself
in for the night with a futon made of clouds.
Mt Fuji: Nature's very own Prima donna!!! Unreasonable, temperamental,
a little egotistical (being numero uno mountain in Japan)
and although frustrating at times, cannot done without.
If you've shared similar mixed fortune with Mount
Fuji photography, you might be interested in the following
links:
Get
that perfect image of Mount Fuji without the hassle!
One of the web's most illustrious Mount Fuji guides is only
a click away
