Ruin of the White Root Mine

July 26, 2010 · Posted in Gunma, Haikyo, Mines / Factories · 5 Comments

The White Root mine is old, so old that only the faintest outlines of its bones remain. Squint hard and you might see fragments of its ribcage scattered over the hillside, parts of a cracked skull just visible through the topsoil. Once it must have been huge, swathing up and down the valley and pumping out smoke, now there’s just a single slurry run and a few walls left.

I went there ages ago, on the same road trip that took me to the Gunma Ski Lift, Hume Cement Factory, and back to the Asama Volcano Museum.

Some kind of storage vat, I wager.

Volcano Museum 4. Haikyo Wedding

April 12, 2010 · Posted in Gunma, Haikyo, Models, Museum · 18 Comments

I`ve been thinking for a long time about shooting models in a haikyo. I bought a flash (SB-600), a flash-stand, and even took a lesson on flash, but still the thinking remained thinking and not shooting. I had no desire to go on a practise shoot that wasn`t in a haikyo, but I was too shy to take a model solo to a haikyo without any experience. Quite a quandary.

In the end the answer came to me, in the form of Dom. Dom found my site and got in contact about his vision for a wedding photo shoot; him, his fiancee Liduina, and 5 of their best friends in full wedding regalia, in a haikyo. They`d bring their own shooter so the pressure wouldn`t be on, the vibe would be great since they`re all good friends, and the setting would be dramatic with great costumes they would provide. It was exactly what I`d been looking for.

Haikyo Bride

Asama volcano museum 3- Return to the ruins

January 2, 2010 · Posted in Gunma, Haikyo, Museum · 17 Comments

This was my second time to go to the Asama Volcano Museum. The first was on my first haikyo road trip back in 2007- back when I was packing only a cameraphone to shoot with and cared far more about the explore than I did about the photography. It was an amazing place to ‘discover’ for ourselves, our nerves on high wires the whole time as the ethereal music rang out from the rooftop. In the two intervening years the balance of my interests has changed, with photography coming to the fore, perhaps naturally, over exploring. The Asama Museum has been shot pretty extensively though, and it’s becoming a challenge to see it in a new light.

From the fore, in HDR.

Asama Volcano Museum 2- History of the Haikyo

December 23, 2009 · Posted in Gunma, Haikyo, Museum · 8 Comments

The Mt. Asama Volcano Museum was a mould-breaking facility opened in 1967, offering insight into the life-cycle of the most active volcano in Honshu (the main island of Japan), and into the area of volcanic rock surrounding it known as Oni Oshi Dashi (exiled demons). Its opening ceremony was attended by then-Crown Prince Akihito (now the Emperor) and his young wife Crown Princess Michiko (now the Empress). It was the beginning of an exciting new era for Japanese science. It has since been voted one of the top two haikyo in Japan.

The main facility under construction.

Chutes and Ladders in a Haikyo Factory

December 17, 2009 · Posted in Gunma, Haikyo, Mines / Factories · 23 Comments

It was the third time for me to set out in search of the Hume factory. The first time was on our inaugural haikyo road trip- we hit up Kappa Pia Theme Park and the Volcano Museum by day and searched for the Hume factory by night. It was pouring it down and we ended up climbing over a fence into a whole different factory, one that turned out to be live, with motion sensor security lights and big humming grids of transformers. Fail, but a great bit of adventure. The second time was solo, I hoped to tack it on as a chaser to the Shrine/Castle I went to a month or so ago. Fail due to train constraints and fading daylight. This time it was first on our list, and stood no chance of escaping exploration.

Main Warehouse.

Bones of a Gunma Ski Lift

December 8, 2009 · Posted in Gunma, Haikyo, Ropeway · 7 Comments

The Gunma ski lift was the glace cherry on a sumptuous cake of weekend haikyo. We’d headed up into the northernmost quadrant of Gunma seeking a mine/factory, one of the last few within a reasonable drive of Tokyo. The mine itself turned out to be not all I’d hoped for, mostly demolished and overgrown, but the ski lift and adjoining recently abandoned ski resort were a wonderful consolation prize.

Bones of a ski lift, neglected.

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ruins / Haikyo

The ruins of Monkey Island
No, not the game. This particular Monkey Island (‘Sarushima’ in Japanese) is located off the coast of Yokosuka near the mouth of Tokyo Bay, and during World War II served as an artillery battery and first point of defense of the Japanese homeland. After the war the anti-aircraft guns were removed, a ferry service began, [...]

Category: Haikyo, Kanagawa, Military Installations
Relics of Camp Drake in Saitama, Japan
Camp Drake was a joint US Army/Air Force base in Saitama, active until the 1970`s. It contained a hospital which handled troops coming out of Vietnam and also a communications array. Now about half of it remains, an overgrown jungle with only a few remaining buildings set back behind several layers of fencing. The other [...]

Category: Haikyo, Military Installations, Saitama