Manhole Covers in Japan
Wednesday, March 31st, 2004
A few years ago my wife Anne and I went to Japan to visit friends. Having taken a fair amount of Japanese art history in school and having been greatly influenced by Japanese ceramics, I felt that I had a pretty good sense of Japanese design.
One of the things that people told me who had been there was that nothing, and they meant nothing at all, was left untouched: every chance people get to manacure, or arrange something, it is done. And there is much evidence of this in even the least important trees and shrubs.
However, it goes deeper. As we walked around Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and other cities nearby, I noticed that in each area, there was a different casting or pattern on manhole covers (and other cast iron work). Here are just a few of my favorites. These, by the way, were shot with film with an Olympus Stylus Epic and scanned later.
Note: my wife thought I was crazy shooting all of these until we got home and put them in an album.
I shot about 100 but alas, they were shot with a small, Olympus Stylus Epic rather quickly (my wife groaned each time I set up a shot thinking I was nuts).
Then, stupidly, I scanned them at relatively low resolution.
Next time I go to Japan (if/when) I plan to have a Canon 10D and a lot of nice, prime lenses. You can be sure I’ll reshoot this series and more.
This collection is worthy of its own coffee table. Discovering each one must’ve been a treat. I love not only the manhole covers but also the surface textures around them.
How many of these beauties did you shoot?
Nan
A freind on flickr, joka2000, just showed me this site, useful for trracking which manhole covers come from which provinces/towns.
http://www6.airnet.ne.jp/manhole/zukan/main.html
Dear Richard,
You can tell by my web site that I share your enthusiasm for the beauty of manhole covers.
“Grate Wishes,”
Bobbi
Bobbi: wow, what an fantatsic site you have and “grate” work. Thanks for letting us know about it.
It was “Grate” hearing from you!
Regards,
Bobbi Mastrangelo
Dear Richard,
Yes, Japan has got some of the nicest and colourfol manhole covers.
I am collecting pix of manhole covers.
I then retouch them in the photoshop.
I’d like for you to send me pix of manhole covers in your country or around the world.
I can do likewise.
Best regards.
John Low
John, I’m sorry to say that the images I have are not high quality enough to do much with except savor as snapshots. Good luck with your project and let us know where we can see it online.
Wow, a great online museum dedicated to this stuff:
http://www.geocities.jp/okachincom/MH/dohoku/dohoku.htm
Hello, I am also collecting manhole pics; i am a german teacher in retirement…
please give me an aswer about sharing pics!
Thanks!
Gerd: These are not high quality pictures and I’d prefer that they remained here. I took them many years ago with a film camera and did not properly scan them for use on the web. Thanks for asking though and good luck with your collection.