Under the spreading maple trees.

The bright red Japanese maples (紅葉, momiji) are without compare. Of all the autumn colors, they stand out the most. They go best when contrasted with the brilliant golden ginkgo (銀杏, ichō), but are still gorgeous by themselves.

For the Japanese poetry lovers among us, momiji by itself is a kigo for late autumn. My saijiki^[1] mentions that momiji viewing parties began in the Heian period, which incidentally is also when cherry blossom viewing parties stared to be a thing.

This photo from Rokusho Shrine (六所神社), the Matsudaira family shrine,^[2] honored after Ieyasu became shogun as a sacred place. There is a high school nearby, so school kids are constantly going through this area. Not much of a secret place, unfortunately, but a beautiful one.

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.

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1. A saijiki is a book or books (sometimes several volumes long) that contains a listing of kigo—season words—for use in haiku, divided by season, along with example haiku for each word and brief description. ↩

2. Ieyasu's family name and his family's for some generations was Matsudaira before he changed it to the far better known Tokugawa. ↩