Scattered around Tottori Sand Dunes

The Tottori Sand Dunes is one of the most famous attractions in Tottori Prefecture, attracting heaps of visitors to its grounds on a sunny day. A 13-minute drive from the JR West-owned JR Tottori station, it was used by the world-famous Japanese photographer Shōji Ueda as backdrops for his modernistic photographs.

Besides walking and admiring the amazing view that the both the sand dunes and the adjacent Sea of Japan provides, you can even rent a camel for a short period of time to traverse the vast landscape of the dunes. However, if the winds get too strong on any given day, no camels would be allowed to be ridden on, and a minimal fee has to be paid if visitors want to take pictures with these humpbacks.

For this photo series, I decided to take a different approach in photographing the sand dunes. It was really interesting to see the visitors perambulating the space of the dunes, their physical selves small props against this gargantuan backdrop. Many of these visitors are either huffing and puffing their way up a hill, shading themselves from the blazing sun with an umbrella, or hastily snapping away with their cameras.

By trying to do all these things, it was almost as if they were trying to pit themselves against the brilliance that is the creation of the sand dunes. This photo series shows the literal contrast between human and nature, with the contours of the sand dunes acting as interesting details in the photographs.