What does it mean to be the largest city in the world? Tokyo is not the largest city by size. It also does not have the largest population for a legally defined city. Tokyo is the most populous metropolitan area and most populous urban area in the world. Essentially, if you were to ignore technical/legal boundaries of cities, which can be very arbitrary, and just defined a city by a contiguous urban area, then Tokyo has the largest population.

Visiting Tokyo though does not feel like you’re visiting one city. It’s really made up of 23 smaller cities, many with their own central or downtown area. I’ve heard people describe New York City as a city with no center, but I’m sure many people would agree that lower Manhattan is more or less the center of New York. But Tokyo, to me, really felt like a city with no center, or with many centers.

I just spent 5 days up in the Adirondack mountains in upstate NY. Normally when I go up to the Adirondacks I focus mainly on climbing as many big mountains as I can, but this times I decided to prioritize photography, particularly sunset/golden hour photography. I actually found a nice rhythm of hiking up a big mountain during the day, and then finding a smaller mountain with a nice viewpoint for an evening sunset hike. This also ended up being a great way to test my new headlamp!

El Chalten, “the trekking capital of Argentina”! With five days in and around El Chalten I got to experience a small piece of what this place has to offer. Other than hiking and camping, the area around El Chalten in also well known for mountaineering, rock climbing, mountain biking, and I’m sure much more.

This winter I decided to try some real winter hiking for the first time. I have been to the Adirondacks a bunch of times in the spring and summer, but with a few days off at the end of December I figured I’d buy some snow shoes and head up for a few days to give winter hiking a try. As someone who has been an avid three season hiker for awhile now, snowshoeing up mountains for the first time has opened up a whole new world to me. Winter hiking can require a bit more planning, as well as more gear, to fully enjoy it. So here’s a quick guide to getting started for winter hiking, alongside some of my favorite photos from the trip.

Earlier this year I took a trip out to California and visited San Francisco for the first time.

San Francisco is obviously a very well known city, so I don’t thing I have any new information to offer on things to do and places to see, but I suppose I could offer a few tips to other photographers, who like me, just like to walk and wander with their camera. So consider this post to as a quick guide to photographing San Francisco.