Photo Series Category

The women divers of Hegura-jima, an island in the Sea of Japan, continue to have the semi-nomadic lives their ancestors had many centuries ago. They are not the only "Ama-san" in Japan but they are a community which closely follows the rules of a traditional model - "Iriai" - with hereditary rights based on collective resource use and management. My journey to Hegura-jima, to document the activities of the Ama-san started in June 2015, after a couple of years of research. I was able to stay on the remote island for five days. I planned to get to know the divers, learn how they lived and learn how they felt about their work. And, of course, document as much as possible with my camera. These images are part of a larger collection of images, captured during this first journey to Hegura-jima. This time, I was welcomed to follow the divers around the island - some of them dive from the rocky beaches - and to photograph them as they left in the morning and as they returned from sea with their catch of shellfish and red algae. I will return to Hegura-jima for the second part of the project, hoping to be able to get closer to the divers and learn a little more about these fantastic women and their way of life.