Ukishima-cho Factories

POSTED BY DANNY CHOO On Sun 2013/06/16 17:10 JST in Places to visit in Japan
There is another very cool place in Japan that photographers may want to visit thats hardly documented - the factories of Ukishima-cho.
I've always known that there was a place filled with factories but never knew where it was until we just happened to drive past it last night.
Ukishima-cho is located in Kawasaki in a landfill area that is covered with factories as far as the eye can see.
However, as its not really a tourist or residential area (2 registered people live on the island), if you want to visit then you need a car or long walk from Kojima Shinden station on the Keikyu Daishi-line. Would be better if you can take a rental bicycle as the area is huge.
If you go on a clear night that would be best as the plumes of smoke look clearer - if you go on a windy night then your timelapse videos would look awesome.
There is a Japanese term to describe the appreciation of factories through photography and is actually called "Koujo-moe" or "Factory Moe!"
This search result for Koujo Moe shows you how big this is in Japan.
I was driving on the highway at the time so could only stop in rest pits thus I was only able to get a few photos. Will be going back there in the Summer to spend more time in the area though. Maybe a bunch of us can go together!
Uploaded a couple of these as wallpapers to my Flickr Stream. I left the ISO settings etc in there too. The Sony NEX series handles low light well with minimum noise levels. Although I did tweak these a bit in Lightroom.
Didn't have a tripod with me and even if I did, it was too dangerous to use from the top of the highway ><
If you are going to Ukishima-cho to take photos from ground level then take a tripod - you should be able to get less grainy shots than these.
View from the car as we zoom back to base.