Komadome waterfall, in its best autumn colours.

The colors, the landscape, without the tourists nor colour-cheating application !

Autumn in Japan is a really special season. Nature is suddenly on fire. In some remote areas forests turn red, orange and yellow. This is a unique natural show which the Japanese people enjoy a lot. The “koyo” season is cherished, as is that of the sakura (cherry blossoms).

There are a lot of beautiful places to enjoy those autumn colors. One I recently discovered was in Tochigi prefecture, in Nassau kogen, roughly 200km north of Tokyo. The spot is an observation terrace built to enjoy the view of the Komadome waterfall, on the Yosa river. Mountains here are truly beautiful, and usually tourists (locals and foreigners alike) stop at Nikko, making it a not so popular destination. Fine, I don’t enjoy crowds anyway !

This waterfall is one of the most beautiful I saw. The whole mountain around is set on “full autumn mode” while the waters of the river itself are of the deepest blue. Before coming here I thought that most of the pictures I saw were over-saturated in a Photoshop-like software to make it more impressive. But no. Surprisingly the colors here are just naturally popping out. If you’re familiar with Fujifilm’s film simulations, I just used Astia, a mode that usually works pretty well for landscape photography tones.