I don’t receive many professional requests for scenery photography. Most people figure they can go and snap a shot off themselves. So let’s imagine a request like, “I want a shot of sundown.” At the time of shooting, there are all kinds of conditions you need to check before you can take a comparatively attractive shot: Is it good weather? Are there clouds high in the sky? Did it rain the day before? You can’t really plan for these things. And other specifications, like taking it from a mountain or from the beach, for example, only complicate matters. In other words, scenery photography is not grounded in the likes of techniques, necessarily, but whether a photographer is actually in a position to take the desired shot.
The other day I traveled with two other photographers to Gokase in Miyazaki prefecture. We stayed in Gokase for a week, taking pictures of its beautiful scenery and its people. We were introduced to many locals, and we were able to take not simply those people, but the lives they inhabit–their locale and material culture.
One person who teaches canoeing to children said, “I traveled the world but settled down here.” A farm worker laughed, with evident happiness, “I was doing the same thing every day and got bored of it.” A youthful guy with a tattoo heated some tea, murmuring as if to himself as he faced the stove, “This is some good stuff.” One local guide said, “We have no graves here. Instead, we have vacation lodging.” He showed us the small structure he had built to enshrine his ancestors and which he referred to as the “lodging”. The person who hosted us with a fire-pit dinner at our lodgings said, “Isn’t this a great picture? But I didn’t have my real camera at the ti
me and took it with my cellphone.” It was on an old-school flip phone. In a field, a farmer approaching the age 100 introduced his wife by saying, “I can’t really see out of my left eye anymore, but I’ve got her so I’m doing just fine.”
Photographs aren’t just a record of something you can see with your eyes. I came to that realization in Gokase. Our time there was, in that regard, like a dream.