Done with the shoot for Peninsula Hotel in Tokyo.

After roaming the streets I’m really in love with the country and the people. Luckily we get to go to Kyoto for a couple of days. I’m dying to come back.

On the tech side, this was the first shot with the new Canon 5D Mark II. I really start to love the camera, especially for available light and quick run and gun shooting. Besides it’s surprisingly small and weather resistant.

We had a near constant rainy mist all day. The files I saw so far look great and with the Peninsula’s High Speed internet I uploaded the images to the photoshelter servers in no time at all, sometimes even between shoots.

I’ve seen the future…Now I have to work on the video aspect of the little Canon, but that’s another day.

It’s the middle of the night in Tokyo, Berlin was a blast, great people, snow in February and the whole city very pretty.

Annie’s exhibit was a total blowout, 4000 over opening weekend, a record, Saturday morning she’s on all the Berlin Newspapers on the front cover (and I worked out with Depeche Mode’s front man Dave Gahan in our Hotel gym).

Photographically I find Berlin hard to grasp, everything is far apart and I guess growing up in Germany I’m not very impressed but regular and grey scenery.

But then again I should one day revisit the ordinary Germanic, grey and orderly ways…Note to self-read: some Philosophy classics again.

Arrival in Tokyo, coming from Frankfurt.

Had my Frankfurter Würstchen and Apfelwein, finally at the airport on Sunday, all happy.

The Peninsula Hotel sends us a BMW 7 series and a Rolls Royce for the Airport pick up. We obviously all crammed into the Phantom with Annie riding shotgun and had the most unusual welcome to Japan in the quietest car I ever been in.

A nice way to travel and totally relaxing even in the constant rain.

It was like a sold out Rock show, traffic came to standstill, and after the place opened its doors to the public you couldn’t even walk or exit the building. But I finally met Veruschka, who moved from NY to Berlin and loves it. And the space, the old Postfuhramt, is just great. This is now the 3rd hanging of the show that we’ve seen (After Brooklyn and Paris) and they do feel very different. (Still open through May 24.)

And talking about Rock concerts, the Depeche Mode stayed in our Hotel (de Rome, go figure) and I worked out with David Gahan in the early morning…

And I got to stop at my favorite shop: “Manufactum“. I nearly forgot about those guys, but when we travelled to Berlin in 2007 to photograph Knut, the polar bear, for the Vanity Fair cover, we stopped by a coffee shop around the corner and ever since I was itching to go back. They also have a great website and a lot of their products are available for shipment to the US as well. Love it…

Finally got my hands on the new Canon can’t wait to test it out. So much smaller than the 1Ds I usually shoot. And the quality is said to be on par as it uses the same image chip.

Well, at least there no small images anymore I my library.

Serious photography has to hurt a bit, if not it’s just not serious (anybody said Canon G10???)