Today’s photoessay is a quick landscape reminiscence from the end of last year; and I mean quick in both execution and conception. I captured these in approximately an hour, from two locations – one, not far from the ryokan at which I stayed during my visit to the Sigma factory outside Aizu, Japan; two, at a bridge overlook again very close to the Sigma factory (for which I requested a quick vehicle stop after seeing what was underneath it, and the unique perspective afforded by the height of the bridge). Nevertheless, I find we often encounter these single very strong locations that yield a large number of views and images (something similar happened in the Arrow River Delta outside Queenstown, New Zealand); they feel like brief chance encounters with random strangers with whom you just ‘click’ and promise to keep in touch with again; whether or not that transpires is another matter entirely. Many are in fact a sort of portrait of the location (even if ‘landscape portrait sounds rather odd). But for those moments, it was fun. I can only hope that in this series some of that magic of the cool breeze, clear sky and rustle of dry leaves carries through. MT

This series was shot with a Sony A7RII and Zeiss FE 1.8/55, and a Leica Q. Postprocessing via Photoshop Workflow II. You can also look over my shoulder at the underlying postprocessing in the Weekly Photoshop Workflow series.

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