Before you stands a gate. It rears 7 meters high and the fence it bifurcates stretches on for as far as the eye can see. Its walls glisten and seem to move with a life of their own. Across their endless expanses giant figures burrow, retreating behind blankets of spiders webs, emerging again down spiral staircases far off in the distance. Through the gate you can see the Dreamtime. You see the pattern of the land, and the Songlines that have sprung up around it. Gaze into it for long enough and you might even catch a glimpse of the …
The lava-engulfed ruins of Paricutin cathedral
The sky is black with ash-fall. People are standing in the streets, looking up into the fog. They hold out their hands, and little mounds of grainy black stone gather. Down the clay-walled guinnels of the town you hear the cathedral bells ringing a discordant pattern, as though God himself is beating the life out of them. The ground jumps and growls underfoot. You look around, into the faces of your neighbors, and wonder what sin you have committed to deserve this. Then you see the first of the slow-rolling waves of lava, inching their way down the mountainsides towards …
Weekender Interview and Cover
A few months back Elisabeth Lambert of the Tokyo Weekender (one of several free English magazines available in Tokyo) got in touch with me about haikyo. She was doing research for an article, and we went back and forth with a few sets of interview questions. It’s always interesting for me to talk about haikyo, especially if the person ‘gets it’- compared to people who (and I understand this view too) think ‘why would you want to go to dirty old buildings full of trash’? The magazine came out this week, and it turns out the haikyo piece is the …
Hotel Queen Haikyo
The Hotel Queen is another abandoned love hotel on the banks of Lake Tama. I first saw it the first time I went out there to shoot the Akasaka and the Red Blossom about 2 years ago. At the time it looked semi-abandoned, with a chain roping it off. I tentatively strode over the chain only to be blasted by a motion sensor alarm. I froze like a deer in the headlights, saw a nearby open door, shoes on the ground beside it, and decided not to push my luck any further. I cycled off, heading for the real meat. …
Remnants of the US Air Force Base in Tachikawa, Japan
The abandoned US Air Force (USAF) base in Tachikawa is a bramble-choked memento from the early days of Japanese/American war and peace. It was annexed by the USA shortly after World War II, in co-operation with the still-active nearby Japan Army (SDF) Base, then abandoned in the 1970’s as the Vietnam war came to a close. Its three huge chimneys are still visible from the exterior, brick-red and lined up like masts on a rudderless ship, slowly sinking deeper into the smothering sea of green jungle. Its airstrip now swims with weeds, and bamboo forests have grown through the foundations …
Keishin Hospital 4. Model Shoot
After the grand luck of Dom and Liduina contacting me for a wedding haikyo shoot a few months back, I figured I couldn`t bank on the same thing happening again. If I wanted to shoot models in haikyo more, I`d have to get out there and find them myself. So I put out a casting call, not sure if anyone would reply. Well, several did, which was great. The first I organized a shoot with was Sara, at the Keishin Hospital.
Outdoor Japan Haikyo – Sports World
The March-April edition of Outdoor Japan was my second time to present a feature article on haikyo, including photographs. This time I focused on Sports World, my all-time favorite haikyo. They did a wonderful layout in spooky black with the photos given ample space to shine. In addition I had the chance to go through the copy of the whole magazine with Gardener the editor and help out with proofing in general, which was great fun. You can buy back-issues of OJ and of course Subscribe to future issues here.
Kindred Spirit Interview- The Spirituality of Ruins
I’ve mentioned my sister Alice on this site before– when she got her book ‘The High-Heeled Guide to Enlightenment‘ published. She spent a year of her life experimenting with various forms of spirituality- going to shamans, doing sweat lodges, having reiki crystal therapy, being regressed through past lives, etc… It’s a fascinating read I’d recommend to anyone interested in that sort of thing. Typically I’m not, but I’ll admit some of it got me thinking. Anyway- since that book came out she’s been hard at work promoting the book and writing pieces for magazines based around the topics of the …
Burnt Down House haikyo
When I went on the wedding haikyo shoot a few weeks back we stumbled upon this burnt down house. Normally I`d bypass it in favor of the target- in this case we were looking for the Hume factory, but that turned out to be demolished. We had some time to kill, so after looking into the nearby Pachinko Hall we decided to check out the house. Dom and Liduina posed a bit in front, but the light was going and none of us were really in the mood to do a proper shoot, so we just poked around inside.
The Ruins of Warcraft
The online fantasy game World of Warcraft is awash with ruins. Half of the in-game quests involve pilfering buried treasure from cities razed by the Scourge, temples leveled by the Lich King, and craters where force field-encapsulated cities once lay. A large part of the joy of the game (IMHO) comes from exploring these areas and their eerily haunting graphics. The ruins of Bashal’Aran