2025 Kyoto Autumn Foliage Tour – I. Arashiyama

Every year from late November to early December, Kyoto welcomes the season of light and color. This 2025 Kyoto autumn foliage tour is divided into 8 themes to share with everyone, hoping it won’t cause visual fatigue.

Ⅰ. Arashiyama | Flow of Light
Ⅱ. Hōgon-in Temple | Borrowed Scenery of Light
Ⅲ. Extra Chapter: Road to Jakkō-ji Temple | Guiding Light
Ⅳ. Ōhara Jakkō-ji Temple | Whisper of Light
Ⅴ. Ōhara Sanzen-in Temple | Breath of Light
Ⅵ. Eikando Temple | Reflection of Light
Ⅶ. Shinnyo-do Temple | Stairway of Light
Ⅷ. Extra Chapter: Kyoto Night Light and Shadow | Murmurs of Light

Ⅰ. Arashiyama | Flow of Light
Mountains and rivers quietly flow, a gentle breeze brushes the maple leaves.
Light slowly flows between the mountains of Arashiyama, echoing time and marking the beginning of the journey. For this autumn foliage tour, I chose to start from Arashiyama. It is one of Kyoto’s most iconic autumn scenes, combining the tranquility of nature with the warmth of culture.
🌿 Balance of Light and Shadow
Autumn in Arashiyama is not a bold splash of color but a rhythm between light and shadow. The Sony A7R IV’s high resolution captures subtle tonal changes—the glow on leaf edges, the faint reflections on the water, even the layers of gray-blue in distant mountains are gently preserved in 61 million pixels.
Using the Sony 16–35mm F2.8 GM lens, I kept the frame open and airy, allowing the blue sky and red maples to naturally converse in the wide angle; switching to the Tamron 35–150mm F/2–2.8 lens, I could focus more on the movement of people and boats, compressing space and concentrating colors. These two lenses reveal spatial depth and depict the distance between humans and nature.
🚤 Riverside and Boat Shadows
Afternoons by the Hozu River are the moments that best capture the “Kyoto flavor” of Arashiyama. Blue boats rest quietly on the river, occasionally a visitor rows through the maple shadows. A gentle breeze stirs, maple leaves fall onto the water, shimmering gold with the ripples.
I especially enjoy photographing scenes like this—stillness and motion coexist, nature and humans interweave. The sunlight is sometimes soft, giving the whole frame a gentle, transparent glow. I slightly underexpose to avoid highlight loss and to enrich the layers of the red leaves. When distant roof tiles gleam with a silvery cool tone under the light, the entire scene gains a three-dimensional feel.
🍂 Breath of Color
Kyoto’s autumn leaves have a unique rhythm: from the riverbank to the mountainside, yellow turns to orange, orange to red, and red fades to brown. These colors are not dazzlingly saturated but like a guqin melody—subtle, warm, and enduring.
Standing quietly to observe the movement of light, sometimes just waiting for those few seconds of change is enough to transform an ordinary photo into a living landscape.
Making the sky a lighter blue and the maple leaves more translucent, this tone under autumn light has a soft texture, preserving the atmosphere on site while letting viewers feel the faint glow in the air.
☀️ Afterglow of the Journey
Arashiyama is a place that doesn’t require deliberate composition—every corner tells a story. Some stroll by the river, some gaze afar from a boat, others simply daydream quietly under the trees. What the photographer must do is find that moment that calms the heart.
Although this shooting trip was tight, every time I pressed the shutter, I reminded myself: don’t just record, but “feel.” What’s in front of the lens is not just scenery but the flow of time and inner balance.
As night falls and the maple leaves darken in the sunset, I put away my camera and look back at the crowd on Togetsukyo Bridge. At that moment, the meaning of the journey seemed very simple—
It’s not about taking perfect photos, but about becoming part of the scenery.