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 Except when it snows or rains too hard.
"You can't get good pictures then - and if the camera lens gets
wet, it might get damaged. I really worry about that," said
Shirataki, 78, who has spent the last 26 years following and
photographing Emperor Akihito, Empress Michiko and especially
Crown Princess Masako.
"As soon as I know their plans I'll be there - though it's hard
if I only find out the night before." she added.
Shirataki's passion for "okkake," as the pursuit is known in
Japan, began in 1993, when she followed then-Masako Owada after
her engagement to Crown Prince Naruhito but couldn't get good
photos.
"I wasn't used to carrying such a heavy camera, so I'd shoot the
tyres, or the back seat, or the driver," Shirataki said in the
kitchen of her home in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, decorated with a
photo of Masako and an Imperial Family calendar.
But now she has honed her skills, and her house is filled with a
huge number of photos.
"Uncountable," she said. "After all, it's been 26 years."
Shirataki won't reveal how she and her fan friends figure out
the royal schedules. But once she has the details, she loads a
backpack, takes a collapsible chair and a rice ball to eat, and
heads out.
"They know our faces by now, so when we raise the cameras I
guess they think 'here they are' and they face towards us and
wave," said Shirataki, who always wears sneakers and trousers
for ease of movement while she's on the hunt.
Shirataki and her fellow chasers, nearly all of whom are female,
say their main focus is the royal women and their clothes.
Because of time constraints - she works part time at a car
dealership - she concentrates on the empress and empress-to-be.
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"When my husband was still alive and earning, I'd spend five or
six days a week at this, but now I have to work," she said. The
photo in the Buddhist altar for her husband, who died two years
ago, is smaller than a picture of Masako displayed nearby.
Though she's cagey about how much her hobby costs, she spends at
least 50,000 yen ($447) annually just on photos.
Shirataki says Masako is her favorite and has even appeared in
her dreams. But Shirataki worries how she will fare as empress
after the stress-related illness that kept her out of the public
eye for many years.
"There could be a lot of times where Masako won't go with the
emperor," she said. "If it's just him, we won't go. Her alone?
Yes."
Shirataki may already have reached the pinnacle of okkake
success: this year, she shook hands with the empress.
"I've talked with them briefly before but that's the only time
I'd ever been able to put out my hand ... I didn't realize I
would do it," Shirataki said.
"When I asked, she just said, in a small voice, 'If my hand is
okay,'" she added. "And then I did."
($1 = 111.9400 yen)
(Additional reporting by Issei Kato; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
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