In this series, I don’t like the first photo. Your focus is on the foreground which is not interesting at all and the only thing that would be interesting is blurred.

Yeah, it doesn’t “work” as well as I’d hoped. I’m still learning.

That being said, you have a fabulous image in this set: “bringing it to the racks”. The composition, the focus, the colours, everything is perfectly into place. Congratulations! It’s been interesting to learn about rice harvesting; thank you for your reportage.

I just have one question though, do the people you photograph mind you taking their picture whilst working?

I don’t know whether they mind, but I’d certainly stop if they gave the slightest indication that they did mind. (One generally doesn’t need permission to snap or publish pictures of people visible to the public, but I’d certainly honor someone’s request not to be photographed.) When shooting for the first harvest post, I was so close to the couple that I felt it appropriate to ask them first. They said sure, it’s fine, but I heard them mumbling “strange” (おかしい) later. Perhaps they wondered why I wanted to take their picture? They were nice, but busy, so we didn’t chit-chat a lot.

Thanks for sharing your photos!
C.

Thanks for your kind words about my blog/photography, and your comments! —Jeffrey

I’ll try answer a couple of the questions. First the tying of the rice. As you can see in the first photo, the rice is cut and laid in bundles on the ground. Then either strands of rice-less stalks or string (I saw both) are used to tie around the bundle near the base. It’s a case of looping around once, twisting the ends around each other, and then looping the twist through on itself to secure it.

Once the tying is done and it’s ready to hang, the bundle is divided into two - and I heard different people state either 70-30 proportions or 50-50 - by twisting where it’s tied so it forms an upside down V-shape, and then putting this over the pole. You can see this in the 4th/5th photos.

As for the pole, when they were setting them up in our field, it looked to me like a hollow bamboo tube, but I can’t say more than that unfortunately.

Anyway I hope that’s a little informative. If ever you get the chance to do inekari I recommend it. Although quite hard work (especially when it’s really sunny) it’s very rewarding; especially as in our case where it’s going to a really good cause.

Jeffrey, I’m not sure if you remember but I wrote to you a couple of times in the past about various photographic things. Well since June I’ve been living in Japan (in Nagano), and I’m loving it! Not missing the UK much, except for friends/family.

What I find interesting is the different styles of “hanging” found in different regions.

It certainly seems so; I don’t know how else they’d stay up.

Also, I was curious about the method of building the drying frame. I’m sure the poles were lashed together somehow with either rope, twine or vines. Is it possible you could enlarge the first shot showing the construction in more detail?

You know that you can click on the images to see a much-enlarged version, right? They seem to use a metal structure to hold up the ends of the poles, with the wood poles strung between. It seems also that they used additional wood support for some of them, but not most.

I don’t suppose you know what the poles were…sumac, willow, maple????

Beyond “wood” I have no idea.

Neat post.

Thanks —Jeffy