SNOWYII Yoshihiro Hagiwara

A collection of works by photographer Yoshihiro Hagiwara. As a young boy, he was fascinated by railroads at a time when steam locomotives were still the mainstay of the coal mining industry, even though the mining industry was going into decline. He traveled with his brother to Yubari, Hokkaido, to photograph the last steam locomotive (SL), and continued to pursue and photograph railroads. He then went on to pursue photography at Nihon University's College of Photography in order to study photography in earnest. Shortly after entering the university, the "Yubari New Coal Mine Gas Plunge Accident" occurred, which dealt a fatal blow to Japan's coal industry. Unable to ignore the horrific accident in Yubari, which he had visited in the past, he immediately went to the site and witnessed the victims being carried out of the mine, and was determined to continue photographing coal mines and mines.

One day, while touring coal mines in various regions that were being forced to close due to the full-scale shift to oil as fuel, the artist became fascinated by the sight of man-made structures in winter coal mines covered in snow and merging with nature, and he became obsessed with photographing them. This experience led him to go deep into the snowy mines of various regions in search of a situation similar to that of this time, and this book was born. This book captures the ancient Japanese aesthetic of "wabi and sabi" through the coal mines, which have lost their former glory and are gradually returning to nature, and the decay of the objects left there.