Nearly every photograph on Hidden Japan Gems was taken by me, Nobu, on a Sony α7 across five years of walking all 47 prefectures — every photograph shown as a place I visited is one of them. This page explains what that means for reuse and licensing.
Copyright
All original photographs and text on this site are © Hidden Japan Gems / Nobutoshi (“Nobu”). All rights reserved. A minority of images come from stock libraries, Wikimedia Commons or Creative Commons sources. Those are not mine and are not mine to license to you — a licence lets me publish a photograph, it does not transfer its authorship to me. If you need to reuse an image and the page does not say where it came from, ask me before assuming it is mine.
What you may do without asking
Link to any page on this site. Quote short passages of text with a link back. Share pages on social media using the built-in preview images.
What requires a licence
Republishing photographs anywhere — websites, print, social media accounts, commercial products, apps, or AI training datasets — requires written permission first. Hotlinking images or stripping watermarks and metadata is not permitted.
Licensing a photograph
Most photos here exist in higher resolution than the web versions, and many locations have additional unpublished frames. For editorial or commercial licensing, write to hello@hiddenjapan-gems.com with the article URL and the image you have in mind. I answer every message myself, usually within two business days.
Found one of my photos used without permission? I appreciate a heads-up at the same address.