Japanese garden, Seattle Arboretum

Equipment: Canon 20D, Canon 24-70mm

Image details: 43mm, f/8.0, 1/25sec, ISO 100

Tripods are not allowed in the Seattle Japanese garden except for a couple of days when they have special photography sessions.

Where:
Click for directions to the Japanese garden
Lat, Long: 47.629826,-122.293797

When:
The spring photography session is in the last week of April and the fall session is in the middle of October. You will need to sign up for this session. More details are on this website http://www.seattle.gov/parks/parkspaces/JapaneseGarden/japanesegardenevents.htm.

Plan to show up early. The garden opens at 7.00 AM and the session lasts still 10.00 AM. You can photograph the different parts of the garden as the day progresses. This spring when I went there there was a beautiful bloom of Azelia's being reflected in the pond.

Also the spring event is a little too late for the cherry blossoms you might get lucky and still have a few blossoms you can photograph. There are also plenty of opportunities to photograph the ducks and tortoises that inhabit the pond. Remember to also bring your macro lens if you like taking macro shots of flowers.