DEPRECATED AS OF DEC 2023 – these may return at some point in some form, but currently a dead plugin means the galleries are orphaned.
A collection of photographs of different things that interest me for one reason or another.
NB: There’s not a whole lot of craftmanship to be found in the images in the manhole covers, vending machines, IC cards or bicycle name galleries.
BUT: The regional coke bottles gallery is fairly well shot and a couple of elegant well-composed shots that I’m pleased with can be found in the remainder of our selection here.
I’m working up to doing something really fancy some day…
a collection of the red-bibbed & red-bonneted little statues you see on roadsides and especially at temples all over Japan. Jizo bosatsu is the guardian deity of children & travellers. I was going to write a little primer about jizo statues, but there’s plenty of better, more knowledgeable descriptions out there. I like this one:
Jizo (地蔵/womb of the earth), as they are called, are made in the image of Jizo Bosatsu, guardian deity of children and travellers..
Japanese Jizo statues: ancient protectors of the trail
(click on the link above to become even more jizo enlightened.)
I’ve always felt that an empty playground gives off a weird melancholy energy, especially when its raining, so I started taking pictures of them years ago. Then I noticed the pretty unique fixtures & fittings you find in Japanese playgrounds and started noticing even more funky images to be taken. So here they all are.
these have become more well-known in recent years for their varied & beautiful designs. NHK World has a show about them, called Drainspotters, and there are quite a few photo books out there on the topic.
Japan is pretty famous for its vending machines. I don’t really have much of an interest in those which sell weird things but I’m very into the design of all types of the ubiquitous vendy.
This is my collection of IC cards, used on Japanese public transport. I started this off thinking there were about half as many as you see here… I think I’ll just not bother with the Okinawa Monorail one. Or the Passmo with Hello Kitty on it. Or, indeed, any new ones I learn about in the future…
In 2017, Coke started to make specially themed bottles for different regions in Japan and they added some extra areas in 2018. I didn’t make it my mission to collect all of them, but I did buy any of them that I found while I was travelling about. Took me a while to get around to actually taking pictures, but here they are for your enjoyment. Oh and if you want to see them in a spinny flashy movey wovey GIF format, click here.
I enjoy the variety of Japanese trains and I’m interested in the history of the railways here, how they shaped society and the country itself. I love the power and rush of a train whizzing by… I love the way they look, and I love all the rich symbolism you can apply to or extract from them. I am, however, not much of a train nerd.
I’m very much into trains the same way this guy is:
I’m not a train nerd as some people are who really get excited about tonnage ratings and locomotive types. I’m not that kind of train lover. I love the experience of riding trains, of just slowing down. I feel like I can think on a train the way I cannot think on an airplane or a bus or even driving a car.
Eric WEINER, in an AOM PODCAST
I was parking the Black Beauty one day at a bicycle park and, for the umpteenth time, noticed how weird some of the bicycle names around me were. Started collecting pictures of particularly unusual nomenclature which you can peruse au nonchalant in this collection. (DISCLAIMER: I am old and decidedly unwith it, so some of these names might only seem surprising to eejits like myself. Your Mileage May Vary.)
Everyone’s favourite patchwork pachyderm took over Belfast city in August, 2022, with a slew of stylin’ new looks all done by local artists. I didn’t manage to see all of the redesigned Elmers, but I did get a few and thought somebody might enjoy having a look at them. Official site for the project can be found by clicking here.
CityHillsAndSea 