One day, I was casually watching the evening news on NHK at home.
Coincidentally, that day's special feature was a live broadcast from Yakage Town in Okayama Prefecture.
The reporter was making an original local soda, and out of curiosity,I looked up Yakage Town on Google Maps...and I was surprised.
There, I found a post town that had preserved its Edo-period streetscape so well that it rivaled even the Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter
Rain forecast and difficult choices
We decided to proceed with the filming a few days after watching the television broadcast.
The weather forecast predicted heavier rain in Okayama Prefecture than in Kagawa Prefecture.
So, I decided to get in my car at 5 a.m. and head towards Okayama.
However, I was undecided until the last minute whether my destination should be "Yakage Town" or "Oji-ga-take (Kojima)".
If you go to Ojigatake, fog is almost certain.
On the other hand, Yakage Townhas the charm of being a "post town in the rain."
While driving across the Seto Ohashi Bridge,the Yoshima Parking Areaand checked the cloud movement using the Yahoo Weather app.
And then I had a hunch.
"This means heavy rain is coming to Yakage Town."
I put aside my doubts and decided to head to Yakage Town
A baptism of heavy rain and a small incident
However, thensomething unexpected happened.
As we were driving, it started pouring rain, just as the forecast had predicted.
Just before exiting the Tamashima Interchange, the rain was so heavy that the car's visibility sensors malfunctioned.
After getting off the highway, I relied on Google Maps navigation, but the sound of the rain was so loud I couldn't hear the navigation voice.
As a result, I missed the intersection where I was supposed to turn, and had to take a slightly longer route.
At this point,I had lost about 10 minutes.
To be honest, at that time I was worried that I might not make it in time
Arrived at Yakage-juku and started shooting
We finally made it to the post town area of Yakage.
We parked the carthe Sanyo-do Yakage-juku roadside station. It was still raining quite heavily, so we hastily prepared our equipment while holding our umbrellas.
I didn't have the luxury of calmly filming this time either. But, this is the video I ended up capturing .
A post town soaked in rain and thoughts about the shoot
I always think this, but when you go to a site,there are so many unexpected things.
The intensity of the rain, the movement of people, the way the light is, unexpected events...
It's not always possible to shoot exactly as you envisioned beforehand.
However, I think that, including those coincidences, the footage of Yakage Town this time captures the **real face of a post town in the rain**.
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