These photos were taken almost exactly 6 years ago, and as I was recently reminded of them, I decided to go back and both re-visit and re-edit some of what I originally shot.
The village was a combination of open, sealed and collapsed structures, and whereas some of them had been abandoned for 40 years or so, others were inhabited as comparatively recently as 2012. A mine closure in the area was the likely cause of people leaving in the 1980s, but signs of agriculture helps explain why other residents stayed on.
Those are the only real details we could glean, and even they are rather lacking. It was the same in regards any genuine information about the people who once lived there, except for what some of them looked like, and to a small degree, what their lives may have involved. Elements that together made the village the fascinating find it was, and also what prompted me to look back at the photos again, with the recent publication of an interview I did with Tokyo Weekender magazine being the initial catalyst.
In recent years quite a bit of my work has involved trying to capture moments and scenes that represent the before and after, all of which is covered in the article. And this village was probably the first time I properly documented (or at least properly understood) the power and importance of taking such photographs. The poignancy of faces staring back, along with the almost palpable silence of places that were once filled with people, voices and music are hard to ignore. Moments that while long gone, can now at least be imagined, which in a way allows them to be remembered once again.
