It’s a long story but I was searching for some photos from my handbag modelling career. Well, career is an exaggeration, it was just a day helping a couple of friends who had started a leather products company and needed a model. It didn’t go well. This was in Berlin and they had found a very attractive former electronic spying site as the background. Session finished and a few days later their website was ready – but then they found out it was illegal to photograph in the site they had chosen. So the photographs couldn’t be used. By that point I was no longer in Germany and anyway, for several reasons we needn’t go into, I had decided handbag modelling was not my forte or preferred career path.
That’s a roundabout way of saying I was looking through photos from 20 years ago. I couldn’t find the images I was looking for (probably in an email in a long dead computer) but I did come across a series of images from soon after I moved to Hokkaido – Feb 2006. My wife (the “Ice Queen”) loves winter.
Sometimes she sleeps on top of the duvet when the room temperature is in the low teens (mid 50sF). Once upon a time I could manage to get out in the minus 20 degree (-4F) temperatures but now I want a heated body suit if I’m to go out there. Yes it sometimes looks pretty,
but it’s COLD
and 90% of the time it’s dull, overcast, windy, unattractive,
and 10% of the time it’s impossible to see more than a couple of metres ahead (whiteout). Once I was driving down to the shops, the snow suddenly turned into a blizzard and I couldn’t even see the front of my own car – “where’s the road?” I thought. Thud. The road was over that way, I was in a ditch.
I don’t understand people. They drive to a remote frozen lake, sometimes driving over the lake to park in a lonely spot, they set up a tent, sit inside and drill a hole in the ice, and start fishing for tiny skinny fish that are practically tasteless.
Minimal taste (“subtle”, “elegant”) is a Japanese thing but why do something risky (the ice might break) in very very sub-freezing conditions with no comfortable sitting or sleeping arrangement for hours or even days on end? I hope they’ve got a decent whisky (Japanese spelling) with them.
A brave trip on the winter roads took us to the north east coast of the island and a fishing town called Mombetsu.
Blocks of ice break off from a wide frozen Siberian river and float across the sea to arrive at the coast
and from Mombetsu you can take a trip on an ice-breaker through the floes. Flocks of seagulls fly alongside and pick up food from the hands of the tourists.
Images taken on a Canon EOS 1Ds ii with a 70-200mm lens unless stated otherwise. In-camera jpgs throughout.
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