Chinese Photographer Ying Yin’s was inspired to travel and see snow. While visiting Japan’s northernmost region during the peak of winter, her photo series “Wind of Okhotsk” looks like the end of the earth, with buildings isolated by the intense weather.
Yin covered everywhere from Sapporo, the capital, to Abashiri on the sea coast. Ying traveled using a seasonal train (titled, perhaps not surprisingly, “Wind of Okhotsk”). The train runs across the island, transporting passengers to otherwise distant towns that are ordinarily hard to reach.
During her travels, Ying created a photo series consisting of surreal images of a town that, although populated, looks completely isolated and deserted. The snow and gray weather create an unreal feel like each building stands alone with no surroundings, as if residents will have to trek for miles to make it home.
Speaking to My Modern Met about the project, she said:
The snow acted like a frame, making everything individual [...] The buildings, the walking people, the cars... all frozen in time, becoming a story inside this frame — a silent and lonely story. These stories belong to the cities, the cities build up by these stories.
See more of Yin’s work at her website and Instagram.
Images used with permission of Ying Yin.
[via My Modern Met]
So cool!
Ooh love it. Going to visit Hokkaido this february, should be pretty snowy as well. Gonna take some inspiration from this :)
I remember years ago seeing a laser based projection system being tested on one of the northern roads (don't think it was Hokkaido) so people would have a red projection of where the road and lines were in the complete whiteout