A photog travelling solo to Japan...recommendations?

[inferno10]

I'm planning to do a 2-week solo trip to Japan late March/early April (hopefully timed just right for hanami). I'm pretty into photography, and am hoping to take some interesting pictures of Japan.

At the moment, my itinerary is completely blank. I might dedicate half of the trip solely for exploring Tokyo, and use the other half to explore other areas yet undecided. I've looked in travel books at have some places / events I'd like to check out, but I'm wondering if anyone here has recommendations for photographer-friendly locations, tours, or photowalks. I'm especially looking for hidden gems that might not interest the typical tourist.

On a similar tangent, how tough is it to be a solo tourist in Japan? My Japanese is basic, at best, and I'm only able to read hiragana at the moment. Am I in over my head for this trip?

Thanks for any advice and recommendations!

- Jason
Twitter: http://twitter.com/inferno10
Flickr: http://flickr.com/inferno10

[stuu]

I wouldn't worry about finding subjects to photograph in Japan. I've been twice and both times literally came back with a couple of thousand photographs, it's a visual feast. Incredible architecture, beautiful parks, lively streets, shop windows, street signs etc etc, everything looked pretty different and interesting to me, particularly the first trip. I see you're into street photography so I highly recommend finding festivals, should be plenty of those going on while you're there, and taking one of those bendy gorilla-pod tripods for night shots, Tokyo at night looks pretty awesome. I spent most of my time there just wandering around getting lost and was never short of stuff to photograph. And don't worry about having basic language skills, I do too and never had any major problems, plenty of restaurants have English menus and getting trains was easy, English announcements [in Tokyo], station attendants seem to speak English. btw. on page two of this forum I posted a bunch of info about travelling to Tokyo under the 'Going to Japan alone' post by nyappyrebecca, you might find it useful.

[inferno10]

Excellent! I'll check out that post.

BTW, here is what I'm proposing for my itinerary: http://bit.ly/8xBem8

Am I missing any must-see destinations?

- Jason