This is where it all began for me.... but I didn't know it then. May, 1995.

The year - 1995 ..... doesn't seem like that long ago really - but I was using a camera that took film!! Yep, no digital cameras back then! I saw this Japanese gardener pruning the hedges outside the Hotel Nikko Narita. When I approached him about getting a photo he was happy to oblige by posing with what I now realise was a pair of Japanese made hedge shears. Didn't really take it in at the time. He also had with him a bamboo rake and a bamboo broom (just in the photo - bottom right hand corner).

Japanese gardeners always use hand hedge shears to do their hedging work. That's rather funny in a country renowned for it's technological edge with everything mechanical. That's because the finish is so much more refined with no chewed up leaves to go brown after the job's completed.