shashasha

The beauty of Japan’s disappearing rural sceneries.

Japanese photographer Haruto Maeda has spent over twenty years photographing rice paddies in Japan, from Nagasaki in Kyushu to Yamagata in Tohoku, focusing on the village of Matsunoyama in Niigata Prefecture as well as the Tajima region in Hyogo Prefecture.
As Japanese society undergoes a continuing modernization, the traditional agriculture is on a slow decline, with the number of rice fields being created or passed down to the next generation steadily shrinking. Using a large-format camera, Maeda turns her attention to this disappearing symbol of traditional Japanese life, and captures the idyllic beauty offered by the rice fields during the changing seasons –– clouds reflected in the water of the fields; animal footprints leading through snow-covered paddies in the winter; the light of the sun illuminating the fields through a blanket of thick clouds.