Hanegi Park Plum Blossoms in 2025
Winter 2025 is in its last month in Tokyo. It is cold. I wrote this article at about 2 PM on February 7, and it was 8° Celsius. That might not be cold for some, but it was for me. Anyway, I was looking through X a few days ago and saw some plum blossom photographs. It was early in the season for them, but they looked good. So, I decided to get pictures of them.
Where to go? Most years I have taken my first plum blossoms at Hanegi Park. Why break with tradition? Let’s do it again! I jumped on the Keio-Inokashira Line and headed to Higashi-Matsubara Station. Then it was a five-minute walk.
The 2025 plum blossom season is only starting. Actually, it “officially” starts tomorrow for most parks. So even though I was early, Hanegi’s looked good. Many flowers were in full bloom. Lots of unformed buds were on the branches too. They’ll be even better in another week.
It was another good day of flower photography. Few people were there as it was a weekday. I appreciated that as I didn’t have to wait for people to move to take photos.
Something crushed me though. A long time ago, you could see Mount Fuji from Hanegi Park. In 2017 I even got a photo of it. Every other year the mountain was covered by clouds. Would this be the year to capture it? Well, a big apartment building is in the way now, so I’ll never get it again. That was sad.
I also learned something about my full-frame cameras. Shooting with the f/4 lens fully open at 105 mm might not be a good idea for flower photography. The depth of field is so narrow.
Yes, I wanted a blurred background, but the results weren’t attractive. Only a thin sliver of the flower was in focus. Some parts of it weren’t. They looked ugly. I’ll need to experiment with that. Still, I got enough good photos for this article.
That’s okay because I have more chances to practice from now. I’ll photograph plum blossoms many more times this month. I’ll visit Yushima Tenjin and Koishikawa Korakuen next week if the weather holds. That is something to look forward to. The season is warming up. Leave questions and comments below.
Rohan Gillett
Rohan has lived in Tokyo for 30+ years. He loves photography and plans to capture the entire city.
Here are more plum blossom articles:
External related websites:
- Hanegi Park (official website)