Haikyo

It was a little over a year ago when I first photographed this abandoned apartment and dormitory complex. A completely chance find, it was once home to cement company employees relocated to the area — the apartment building to presumably house families, and the dormitory rooms for unattached workers or those who opted to move out there alone.

Returning again after 12 months or so did not disappoint in the slightest, although despite being empty since the early 1980s, one or two things had moved since that first visit, and some parts were roped off, with several new-ish signs suggesting passersby don’t do what we did and enter the buildings. By far the biggest changes, however, were positive ones. The light was much softer this time, and being out in the mountains, a few trees were already in full autumnal mode — the beauty of which made for a striking contrast to the decidedly less conventional appeal of decay and long-term abandonment.

Going back also proved interesting beyond the simple pleasure of photographing a genuinely interesting set of structures. It offered the chance to see things I’d missed the first time, as well as try some different shots and angles. The more manageable light aided those experiments, and the aforementioned seasonal hues made for a few truly unique visual gifts. All of which is more than enough in regards explanation, so here is what 40 years of Mother Nature and abandonment do to former homes and living spaces.

Some of these photos first appeared on Tokyo Times just over half a decade ago, but after recently returning to them, doing some re-edits, and putting the full set together, it seemed like a good idea to once again go back to that sunny day in 2016. It also felt like a decent time to display the full colours of a Hokkaido summer before the winter snow soon sets in.

Completed in 1936, the Esashi train line ran for a scenic 42kms. Stretching from coast to coast, it served small, inland villages, offering a service that for many must have once been nothing short of essential. Times change, however, and the combination of motorisation, better roads and a decreasing population, gradually left the route with an ever-dwindling number of passengers — a situation that meant by 2011, there were only 6 daily services. While presumably still relied upon by some, in strictly financial terms, it simply wasn’t viable anymore, and so on May 11th 2014, the last ever trains trundled along the tracks.

Fast-forward a little over 2 years after closure, and that’s when the photographs below were taken — the order they are in being their order along the line. Most of the track was still in place, and more importantly, so were a few of the unique and wonderfully quaint little stations. Several of them had already been destroyed or repurposed, and down to nothing but sheer good fortune, a demolition crew arrived at the shed-like waiting room in shots 8 and 9 just as we had finished photographing it. A decidedly ominous sign that the rest of the structures would slowly but surely suffer the same fate, and having not been back since, I can only assume that they have. These images then are a personal reminder of a lovely day in the sun, and somewhat unexpectedly, a document of what very likely doesn’t exist anymore.

Over the last year or so I’ve posted a few sets of photographs from long-abandoned Japanese mountain villages. There was this incredibly photogenic little hamlet, and then more recently, the time capsule-like quality of a settlement tucked away in the trees.

The gathering of houses below, however, is a bit different. Or at least a bit different in the sense that I’ve visited it a couple times, and after recently finding a forgotten photo of a photo from when the village was still occupied, it seemed like a good idea to go back through my shots, do some re-edits, and then put them all together in a single series. A step back in time that was triggered by a much longer look into the past, and as such, I’ve included that old, undated image to round out the set, which sort of brings it all back full circle.

For a bit of background information, the village’s former residents were all hired by the forestry department, and considering the time and location, they would have lived quite isolated lives, with even basics such as food and fuel supplies requiring forward planning. An unusual existence compared to what most people are used to, and unlike their city dwelling compatriots, bears rather crowds or crime would have been a key concern. Day-to-day life that must have been as idilic as it was difficult, yet whatever the small community of workers made of it, human habitation came to an abrupt end in the late 1980s, when presumably due to a lack of employment, everyone simply packed up a few possessions and made their way down the mountain.

Over the last few years I’ve had the good fortune to photograph several abandoned mountain settlements not that far from Tokyo. There was this surprisingly large collection of houses and buildings, some remarkably intact homes of former forestry workers, and the crumbling structures of a long-empty hamlet.

This latest find doesn’t contain quite as many personal items as the others, but what it lacks in old photos and possessions, it makes up for in atmosphere. The late August heat and humidity meant there was no shortage of greenery, but at the same time the foliage blocked out a lot of the summer sun to create a suitably fitting half-light of sorts.

There are also enough houses and decay to offer intriguing hints about the lives once lived there, and indeed how long it has been since the last resident left. A slowly disappearing time capsule that is very much of a particular period and place, and yet there’s also a distinctly universal element at play as well, evoking as it does those ever-present human preoccupations of impermanence and the relentless passage of time.

A couple of months ago I put together a photo series of long-abandoned televisions. The dated technology and retro designs of such sets are always interesting, but for me at least, it’s the quietness they seem to emanate that really makes them special. Screens that families once sat around and socialised in front of now left unused and utterly silent, creating a weird sense of loss of sorts. A feeling I also get with old telephones, so it made sense to put together a similar collection.

At some point in the past we’ve all waited desperately for a phone to ring, or indeed dreaded that once common sound, but these old-school models, photographed over a period of 10 years or so, will never take a call again. All those long-ago conversations they were once privy to now lost in time — connections, both literal and otherwise, having disappeared forever into the void. Yet in many ways that doesn’t matter in the slightest, as looking at them now, almost entirely without context, it’s arguably just as interesting to speculate on who might have used them, and what they may have talked about.

When exploring in the far west of Tokyo last week, I was reminded of a bar out there and the absolutely lovely 93-year-old who owned it. A memory that in turn made me think about the area’s long-abandoned ropeway, as it was an attraction the old lady had actually ridden on when she was younger.

Open and ready for passengers at the start of 1962, the 622 metre cable car ride was, in part, built to capitalise on the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Just like the 2020 Games, however, things didn’t quite work out as planned, and visitor numbers simply weren’t substantial enough. An outcome that perhaps shouldn’t have been all that surprising considering the out of the way location, the short, one-stop hop over a lake, and the meagre 0.6 metre height difference between stations. So a mere 4 years after it opened, operations were halted on December 1st 1966. Ostensibly just for the winter, it was an end of year break that lasted until 1975, when an official suspension was announced. A state the site has stayed in ever since — clearly never opening again, and yet at the same time never actually closing.

Left to slowly decay and staying pretty much untouched for decades, there’s now graffiti on the platform, plus more recently on at least one of the cable cars, so that aspect, and the slightly tenuous Olympic connection, seemed like as good a time as any to re-edit these photos from 8 years ago. A time when everything was almost as it was after that last journey over the lake more than 50 years ago.