Scenic Gallery

Pretty art photos of our beautiful planet captured through the lense of Scott Takeda.

  • During the past three years, I’ve had the great honor of traveling through 15 countries and 32 states. As funny as it sounds, I often feel more comfortable on the road rather than at home. Exploring new lands and thrusting myself into the unfamiliar has become second nature. While traveling, I’ve discovered I have a pretty good sense of direction - always knowing how to get through the most twisty cities and strange situations. That’s probably why this photo makes me smile. It reminds me of the internal compass that we all have inside of us. When we follow it, we will always know our “true north.”
  • Japan is the birthplace of my great-grandparents. My last name translates into Bamboo Garden. So over the years, I had this image of the "motherland" as a place that was placid and peaceful. I learned that can be true, but it takes work to experience it. For example, I literally captured this photo at arms-length. Elbowing my way through hundreds of snap-happy tourists surrounding the mirrored pond of the Golden Temple in Kyoto, I discovered this Zen meditation center was anything but Zen. The only way to take a photo of it without getting the throngs of humanity posing in front of it was to stretch my arms past the security fence to capture the beauty behind it.
  • Despite the placid look, all was not peaceful in Nepal when I visited in 2001. Civil war had reignited with a thunderous explosion as Maoist rebels tried blowing up airports, kidnapping town leaders, and ambushing police patrols with a hail of bullets. Making matters worse, I had gotten deathly ill with strep throat during my stay, so I elected to recover in the “resort town” of Pokhara. I took this photo on the first day I felt well enough to walk around. It was a quiet, calm day, much like the tranquility this image represents. Unfortunately, the following day, violence ripped through town, and I came down with a Nepali intestinal parasite, which later plagued me for weeks. A best selling photo!
  • Railay Beach is a secluded beach in south Thailand that’s only reachable by long-tailed boats. Bordered by impassable rocky cliffs, it has become a haven for rock climbers from around the world, itchy to test their finger skills on its jagged limestone. Between these cliffs lies a long, narrow sand strip of land that barely separates the Bay of Krabi (the sunrise beach) from the Indian Ocean (the sunset beach). This shot was taken at sunrise on my last day on Railay Beach. It was very early in the morning as you can see by the tide covering the tree, and I left in the long-tailed boat on the far right. The red light circling the sun is a lens flare that occasional occurs when a bright light hits a slight imperfection in my glass lens.
  • On the southern outskirts of Knox, North Dakota lies the Higbee Family Ranch. It sits amidst untouched open space freckled with tiny little lakes. Except for the ranch, the ducks, and the persistent mosquitoes, I saw nothing else around for miles. I found these boots topping the fence posts leading up to the Higbee family homestead. The pink ones belonged to one of the four daughters who had grown up and since had left. All of them competed in junior rodeos and wore out countelss boots adding them to the fence, which now stretches a mile in length. This was the only ones in pink.
  • While traveling through France, my dependable Nikon Coolpix 995 camera died. (It was time after more than 15,000 photos.) Camera-less, I made a dash to a trendy mall in Tours, France to buy a replacement. There was no way to test its capabilities under the store’s flat fluorescent lights, so I drifted outside to find a better backdrop. A few blocks away, I found the dark, cavernous interiors of the Cathedrale Saint-Gatien ‘de Tours. The image you see is the camera’s first picture – reflections of the massive stained-glass, rose window off the stone floor of the foyer. A short time later, a wedding ceremony in the cathedral concluded and the wedding party paraded past these very reflections to greet friends and family outside. My gaze followed them as the warm glow of the afternoon’s first light caressed the smiling couple amidst a shower of rose petals and flashbulbs.
  • Budapest is the capital of Magyar (Hungary). Split down the middle by the Danube River, Budapest is a tale of two cities. On the west bank sits the hilly, ancient town of Buda (BOO-dah); and on the east bank is the cosmopolitan berg of Pest (PESHT). Buda and Pest join in name and spirit to form a city that has survived and thrived despite thousands years of invasion by one European empire after another (Roman, Mongol, Turkish, Nazi, Stalin). This shot is of the colorful buildings along Buda’s Hunyadi János street in the castle district. Now home to artists and galleries, the buildings along the narrow cobblestone street retain their colorful, friendly, Baroque exteriors despite centuries of post-war rebuilding.
  • New Zealand’s reputation for being the Adventure Capitol of the World is well deserved. On any day of the week, you can bungee-jump, skydive, spelunk, rock-climb or embark on any other adventurous activity – just as long as it involves pushing yourself to your physical limit and surviving a whopping adrenalin jolt. On New Zealand’s northern coast, the tiny town of Paihia spells adventure w-a-t-e-r. Hundreds of thousands of sea-lovers flock there to surf and enjoy water activities like sea kayaking. For just $25 (USD), you can paddle for miles and explore the Bay of Islands. Your trip’s light snack includes diving to the ocean floor for fresh mussels and cooking them in a tasty mixture of fresh garlic and butter while resting on an island beach.

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