Jungle photo adventures on Iriomote island

Shooting the Milky Way with some waterfalls at 3am in the jungles of Iriomote island

Thanks to Mark Thorpe (Okitog) for the photo!

Just returned from an amazing trip to Iriomote island which is a 50min boat ride off the coast of Ishigaki island. Myself and 4 good friends Nayuta, Mark, Shawn and Vish flew over to Ishigaki island then onto Iriomote for a few days of adventures in the jungles to shoot the night sky and some of the beautiful waterfalls on the island. This was also a great chance to wear in my shiny new Canon 5DmkIV camera!

This is my 4th trip to the island and theres always new waterfalls to visit and shoot. This trip I wanted to visit the biggest baddest waterfalls on the island so I got our guide Daichan to lead us on a 14km round trip hike plus it took a small 15min boat ride just to get us to the starting point. It was a very tough but beautiful trek along rivers with multiple small waterfalls and a few very large ones before finally getting to the big beast Maegusuku falls. All in all it took us 12hrs of hiking with lots of steep muddy climbing and getting attacked by leeches to get there. But it was well worth it! 

I forgot to mention we started this hike after only about 2hrs of sleep as we also trekked into a different waterfall the night before in hopes of capturing the Milky way with a waterfall at the optimum time of 3am. 

Apart from wanting to see and photograph these beautiful falls I was also there to shoot photos of my good friend Nayuta for her upcoming CD and also to sell as stock photography. Plus myself and Mark Thorpe will be leading photo workshops/tours soon on the island and so wanted to get some new promotional material and also suss out which falls and other nice places would be better for leading workshops on. 

Will have more info on upcoming Iriomote island (and possibly Taketomi island) tour dates in a future blog post and also I'll be announcing dates on my main Facebook photo page fotoShisa Photography

Theres tons more photos yet to share but for now here are just a few teaser shots. 

On day 1 getting some slow shutter shots of Nayuta 

playing her Ukelele. 

Photo by Mark Thorpe (Okitog)

Tripod provided by Velbon Tripods

On our first night we trekked an hour into the jungle

to photograph a stunning starry sky above a waterfall. 

Shawn Miller and myself found a way in behind the falls. 

We were surprised to find it a few degrees warmer behind the falls. 

Not surprised that it was super loud. 

Plenty of nice views along the trek. 

Mark getting his long exposure game face on!

Nayuta gets perched on the edge along the way. 

Another 3 hours or so from here to the main falls. 

Some more pretty falls along the way

River trekking along the 7km route

A front on view of Maegusuku falls

Mark getting set up for a shot up nice and close with Maegusuku falls

Nayuta chilling on some very cool tree roots over along the river

Many thanks to my sponsor Velbon for providing the awesome trekking tripod I used on this trip.