Japanese mountain rice paddy in spring
My favorite seasons for photographing the Japanese landscape are autumn and spring. I prefer the the richer colours, of course, but I also like the more oblique lighting conditions you generally get no matter what the time of day.
This photo was taken in the prefecture of Nagano (長野） in early May, just after rice planting, near the tiny mountain village hotspring of Takazawa （高沢）. I had just been driving through the Utsukushigahara (美ヶ原） highlands when I received an e-mail from the office that I had to sit in on an important telephone conference. I had to quickly come down from around 2000 meters into the valley where my cellphone would pick up the signal. I was racing — while lamenting over the fact that I would miss watching the sunrise from Utsukushigahara as the call was scheduled for around that time.
To cut time I took a shortcut — an old mountain road that I had not been on since living in Ueda (上田) in the early ’90s. I had completely forgotten how isolated this area was, how much old-world scenery it still retained. I passed by several thatched-roof ”kayabukiyane” （茅葺屋根 ) farmhouses, several idyllic hamlets perched over the valley and many tiered rice paddies.
Racing along, I could not help but notice over my right shoulder the scene you see here with the flowers in the foreground and the lines of seedlings being lit from behind, a little to the side. It was perfect light that brought out the fresh bright green of the “nae” （苗）.
Risking to miss my important call I quickly pulled the car over and got to work setting up my tripod and Hasselblad. A farmer sitting off to the side looked on in amusement at this foreigner frantically grappling with all his gear.
I used a 180 lens, so the issue with this shot, given that I was shooting from an angle above the paddy, was the depth of filed — the area in focus both in front of and behind the focal point. I stopped down the lens to f32, and, using the old panorama focus technique (which you can’t do on the modern Digital camera lenses!!), aligned the infinity mark of the focusing ring to the f32 mark on the aperture ring, thus bringing everything within 7 meters and infinity in focus. Perfect.
Next, metering. As I was standing in the exact same light at the subject, and there were not any challenging conditions such as clouds or nasty reflections, I used incident metering, tilting the white sphere of the meter slightly toward me to simulate the angle the the sunlight was hitting the seedlings from behind. Just to be sure, I spot metered, but it turned out the incident metering was perfect. Actually, I use incident metering quite a lot in landscape photography if the lighting conditions of where I am standing and the subject are the same. Good sunny days are easy. On overcast days, a trick I learned from a Japanese photographer is to point the white semi-sphere to the sky and then increase the reading by a stop. That always works well for me.
I took 2 or 3 shots, the last on that roll and then hurriedly started to pack my gear so I could get going again and make my call.
And then it happened.
As I always do immediately after finishing a roll of film, I began to take the roll out of the magazine so as to have ready for the next new roll. However, in my half excitement (“Oh, this shot is going to turn out great!”), half-haste (“My boss is going to kill me!”), I neglected to roll the film forward completely on to the pick-up spool — and as I took the film out of the magazine, I realized that I had exposed the last few shots to the sunlight! The best ones!!!
I don’t remember if that farmer was still there, but he must have been doubly amused to see this foreigner, now, just minutes later, cussing streams of all obscenities imaginable to the valley winds.
Ahh, such is life.
No choice — I quickly loaded a new film an shot the whole roll (12) just to make sure. Camera off the mount, tripod folded (again, in excitement and haste, fingers pinched between the metal legs and more obscenities – what was this farmer thinking?), in the car, in gear and — vroom — racing again to get into cell phone range.
Usually, photography is a more deliberative, meditative process for me. It makes no sense to me to hurry hurry hurry to “get the shot”. Photography for me is more about the process than the end result. But sometimes, when pressed for time but you just know the shot is a winner, you throw all that away and just go for it. I prefer the more leisurely pace, but I am glad I pulled over that day. Must have made that farmer’s day, too.