The Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Kyoto is one of Japan’s most recognized and famous landmarks for good reason. It is so beautiful and peaceful there and is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to shoot in Japan. When Marcus and Laura messaged me telling me they were coming to Japan and wanted to do an adventurous couples session focusing on their love for travel, I was so excited to help make it happen. We started in the bamboo grove and then explored around Arashiyama. We had plenty of time to chat, get coffee and catch up as well as take some great pictures. Josh also came with me which was so fun, I always love when he’s around to help out at a session.
Tips for shooting in Arashiyama Bamboo Grove
Here are a few tips in case you’re thinking about visiting or taking pictures in the bamboo grove. It is pretty much always busy so if you want pictures like these where nobody else is in them, you’ll want to get to the grove shortly after sunrise. It starts to fill up quickly and while it’s fairly large and you can move around within the space to make it look like nobody is around, there will still be people there. I also noticed that there seem to be 2 different rushes of people. The first one is right around sunrise and is all the photographers who go for landscape shots. The second is the wave of people that come to take pictures of each other and explore it while it’s on the more empty side. You want to try and hit right in between those two groups. If you go too early, then you have to compete with the landscape photographers (which isn’t a huge deal, we just had to wait our turn before we could start shooting) but if you go too late and you’ll have tons of people in your shots. Based on the handful of times I’ve shot there, 30 minutes after sunrise seems to be best. That being said, you can certainly still enjoy the grove with people around so anytime you choose to go I think you will still love it there.
