Walking to the past

i walked around shikoku on the 88-temple henro over 4 years, each time for around 10 days. at a walking pace, i saw scenes passing by like a video on very slow motion. in this slow way, a japan i had not known unraveled itself in a clearer, more visceral manner. with each physical step, each breath i took, the scene moves slightly, so that i could encounter things in a non-deliberate, unconscious way.
when it comes to local areas, there is constant reports in media about acute problems due to de-population and aging population. but this all somewhat feel abstract without first-hand understanding. in my walks, i came across abandoned houses, shops, schools, playgrounds, hotels, petrol stations, and factories. all in various states of dilapidation. all their former occupants seemingly swept away by an economic tsunami into bigger towns or cities to their different ideas of life. or else disappeared into other non-earthly worlds. in their place, plants gladly take over, re-inhabiting the land.
one could feel that human lives and activities only occur for a certain period in the land. you could say it is a short period if we think of the time in terms of hundreds of thousands of years. you could say the human world is rather temporary, or just a part of a larger thing, a larger realm.

k.m.

Park Chair photo meme

 When in a quandary during your photo walks, there's aways the park chair.

Ursula Seitz-Gray

René Burri

Robert Frank

Robert Doisneau

Peter Fink Stuehle

Otto Steinert

Mete Kaan Özdilek

André Kertész

Ilse Bing

Fred Stein

Emmanuel Gill

Émeric Feher

Edward Weston

Del Tin Toni

Christopher Thomas

André Kertész (again)

If on a sunny day...

A long process, but Spellview hill resort in Anji will be completed soon. 

Photos: Yuwen

Arranging Scenes

To make a world with the walking-looking participant as locus, we began layering the architecture with plants and trees on site.

These were procured from a nearby mountain 15 minutes by car away. There, lies a hamlet of abandoned houses with trees densely grown for the purpose of getting more compensation from a potential developer. Seven years ago, this fabled developer had intended to build a resort but the plan fell through. In the meantime the villagers had all moved to better living conditions down to the larger village-town a few kilometers away, leaving the trees growing naturally, beautifully branched without meddlesome human pruning.

For a few days over several trips we drove up, selected some red and white flowering plum trees, green-stemmed prunes, red maples, Chinese barberries, negotiated the price, and paid a rather professional local team of chain-smoking workers to transplant them back to the site. These men, skin tanned, breaths noisome, bodies listless , surprised everyone with their efficient animal-like movements once they started working, almost as if they were hunting prey. Occasionally prodding branches and making remarks about various trees in the same manner that they would relish how juicy a piece of pork might be. “This one will bear large fruits … ,“ “that one will give you shade … .”

One guest-room courtyard was to be filled with rocks, ferns and moss. This was entirely accomplished by raw manual labour, in an aura of cigarette smoke. Another courtyard accommodated a maple tree that made its way in through the small door only after having some of its limbs amputated.
Rockery thus arranged, trees thus planted, branches with tiny white plum flowers finally free to stretch, naturally bees came.

Equally too, these few days of placing and arranging real trees, real rocks and plants, intoxicated me with a deep happy buzz.

Architecture photography by André Kertész

 

Homma Takashi vs Ono Daichi

Images from two different photographers of the same house (G House by Aoki Jun). One makes "art photography", the other does "architecture photography". Different genres, bounded by different sets of rules. Homma's take or 'angle' is personal, is his own. Ono's is generic: his role is to be invisible, to treat the idealised work of "architecture" -- the idea of it -- as sacrosanct, as possessing some kind of god-like identity. He might as well had been replaced by some other being behind the camera, he could be body-less eye-less nameless. Such is the state of architecture photography since Julius Shulman. 

Homma above, Ono below: