What did you do on this day?

The day started out well enough, lunch by myself at a rather nice restaurant in Isetan Department store (appetizer of raspberry soup, followed by roasted duck confit with strawberry & arugula salad, finished with a strawberry mille-feuille). From that point the day pretty much gradually went downhill.

January 18, 2016 saw the first snowfall of that winter in Tokyo, so by the time I set out on the 20th the temperature was still low, and patches of snow could still be seen. It was cold and windy, so my hands were constantly numb and my eyes full of tears. Needless to say I did not want to be outside, the distance I walked was a far cry from the 22 km I walked in 2015! The route I walked took me through Shinjuku to Kabukicho over towards Nishi-Shinjuku, then finally ending my day near Tokyo city hall. Many of the streets and areas that I walked I'd never been before, the unfamiliarity can be seen in the poor results I photographed this day.

How do you feel about the photos a year later?

I've struggled these past few days to connect with the photos — I'm typically my harshest critic, but the photos I took this day are garbage; I took a total of 47 and I had difficulties choosing the 4 above to show something. My journal indicates, and I can recall, that I was trying new areas and a new style, getting closer to people and attempting to use space differently than I had been. The results are atrocious, I'll own to that — not every day is going to be a good day. Now it has me thinking that I should stick to doing what I know how to do well on this day, rather than experimenting. There is plenty of time left in the year to experiment and try new styles. A mistake that I did not make again in 2017. Lesson learnt.