The email landed with a thud: photoshoot canceled. With no warning, my plans for the day were wiped clean. It’s a familiar frustration for any photographer, but this one left me without a backup plan. With a free afternoon and a creative itch to scratch, I looked for an alternative. The answer was closer than I expected—eleven floors up, on my own rooftop.
From my vantage point, the skyscrapers of Shinjuku stood about five kilometers away. But it was the sky that caught my eye. Nice, fluffy clouds were being hurried along by a strong wind, creating the perfect conditions for a type of photography I hadn’t practiced in a long time: black and white long exposures. All the pieces were in place for a great afternoon.
This was the perfect opportunity to use my Lee Super Stopper filter. This is a 15-stop neutral density filter, which is a technical way of saying it acts like powerful sunglasses for my lens. By drastically reducing the amount of light entering the camera, it allowed me to open the shutter for extended periods, even in the middle of the day. I took a series of shots with exposures ranging from two to four minutes, transforming the moving clouds into beautiful, silky streaks across the sky.
The only thing I wasn’t completely happy with was the direction of the clouds. They were moving from right to left across the frame, which wasn’t as visually appealing as I’d hoped. Ideally, they would have moved from the top of the picture towards the bottom, creating powerful leading lines that would have pointed directly to the buildings in Shinjuku and given the final images more impact.
To enhance the drama, my initial thought was to use a red filter—a classic tool for darkening blue skies in black and white photography. However, Fujifilm makes this incredibly easy. I simply switched my camera to the Acros-R (Red) film simulation.
With one click in the camera settings, I achieved the high-contrast look I wanted without having to worry about attaching extra glass to my lens. A few fine-tuning adjustments in Lightroom later, and the pictures were exactly what I had envisioned.
In the end, what started as a disappointment turned into a successful and satisfying shoot. It was a welcome chance to dive back into black and white photography.
All of these photos were taken back in 2020 with my Fujifilm X-T2, which is no longer with me as I now shoot Canon. But it’s still a great camera that takes great images. It’s a powerful reminder that you don’t need the latest gear to create images you’re proud of. The sensor might be a few years old, but who can tell? I only moved on because I found something that offered a different set of features, which was more appropriate for what I wanted.
If you’re looking to get into photography on a tight budget, I highly recommend the X-T2. Here in Tokyo, you can pick up a secondhand one for around ¥90,000 at a store like Map Camera in Shinjuku, and you might find even better deals elsewhere.
Hopefully, I’ll find time to photograph some more nice clouds when they appear. Please leave any questions or comments below.
Date of Photos: 23 May, 2020
Rohan has photographed Tokyo since 2011. He shoots it with his Canon EOS R5. The project will take more than one lifetime to complete.
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