Iya Onsen Hotel perches high above the Iya River in the mountainous and less-traveled region that is in the interior of Shikoku, Japan’s fourth largest island. The area is magical, and the hotel is very special. A self-service tramway takes you down to the onsen (warm public baths) beside the river banks. If you are lucky, you will be entertained by a troop of wild monkeys while in the baths. There is also a very nice public onsen with a view over the valley up in the hotel itself.

Early one morning I woke just before sunrise, and saw clearing fog over Iya Valley. Barefoot, I headed out to the terrace adjacent to our room. 

Even considering the vast dynamic range of my Leica Monochrom M11, I could not capture both the brightening sky and the darkness of the valley in a single photograph. With the camera on a tripod, I made a series of six exposures at shutter speeds ranging from 1/60 of a second (to capture the sky) to 0.7 seconds (for illuminating the darkness of the valley). The captures were made at ISO 125 (the Monochrom’s native ISO) and f/3.4 using my Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 lens.

Later—much later, at home using my production computer—I put the six exposures together in Photoshop, getting precisely the exposure values I wanted at every position in the image to create the image you see above.

Note: We are planning an encore Japan’s Art and Sacred Islands photography tour, with a stay at Iya Onsen, for November 2025. Please check our Workshops & Events page for updates, and for registration information when it is available,