shashasha

A wistful photographic good-bye to a sight threatened to disappear

Japanese photographer Miki Hiruma captured water towers all over Japan. The old water supply system that made use of water towers to regulate the pressure in an area has fallen behind the times, and these large, mysterious shapes that suddenly appear in the landscape are destined to go extinct soon. Driven by her own attraction to the unusual sight of water towers – which don’t fit in with their surroundings, and always seem somewhat lonely – Hiruma selected 63 photographs taken of over 800 towers throughout Japan, preserving their memory and uncovering the relationships these isolated towers had with their varied surroundings.