There is nothing special about this photo in itself, but when placed in context, it changes the way we may look at it.
The photo was taken in the fishing neighbourhood of my home town. Behind the fence erected by the developers were the fishermen’s small one-storey houses. Once a testament to the hard life they endured, over time the neighbourhood was abandoned and the houses gradually fell into disrepair. Now, for security reasons, it is not possible to look through the fence and see what the developers are planning to build in place of this small part of the neighbourhood. I could ask the local council for access to the developers’ plans for the area, but that is not the point.
A word of advice before I go any further with this post: personally, but that’s just me, I have nothing against developing an area by tearing it down to ground zero and rebuilding it from scratch. It would be unreasonable to freeze the landscape of a place because of the need to preserve the past. However, it should not be impossible to find a balance between modernising a city and preserving at least some traces of the past. One example is the Japanese village of Meiji Mura, an open-air museum near Nagoya. Meiji Mura collects real buildings from the Meiji and following eras – including part of the Imperial Hotel designed by Frank Lloyd-Wright – when Japan was undergoing radical change that required the destruction of previous architecture.
This is one possible approach to the need to balance the past, present and future of a place, and it would not be unreasonable to follow it in less radical circumstances. So, to return to the subject of this story, I hope that along with the tall buildings that will take the place of the small fishermen’s houses, there will be some space to preserve at least one of these small houses as a reminder of the history of the town, the soul of the place, and the lives of those to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude.
I have a strong feeling, however, that this is not going to happen.
Post scriptum: the picture is taken with a Pentax K-1 II and and old Pentax-A SMC 50/1,7.
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Paul Quellin on One Shot Story: Behind the Fence
Comment posted: 03/01/2025