Hanami with Tania Rene

Hanami in Aomori

Aomori sits at the top of Honshū, so the blossom front reaches it last the final week of April, by which time Tokyo has already swept its petals up. Hirosaki Park holds some 2,600 trees inside the castle moats, the oldest of them planted in the 1880s, and they are cut back the way the prefecture prunes its apple orchards: hard, so every spur carries more flower than a cherry normally would. The blossom comes out dense enough to read as weather rather than as trees.

Shot across two afternoons in the park, 1920 April, with Tania Rene.