Skye Hohmann Photography and Writing

Protest marches are no rare occurrence in India. Since Mohandas Gandhi added the padyatra (foot march) to his repertoire of nonviolent tools with the 1930 Salt March to Dandi, leaders and activists across the world's most populous democracy have used long marches to draw attention to their causes. As a result, Indian politicians are used to this sort of mass action, and the sight of 25,000 people walking, even along the country's national highway... http://www.skyehohmann.com/Janadesh.pdf The images in this gallery are available for licensing. Please contact me for print quality stock images from this gallery.

Japanese macaques, or snow monkeys, are found further north than any other monkey in the world, populating the Japanese archipelago from Kyushu in the south to the far north of Honshu. The macaques troupes in these images are the Jigokudani troupe, which shows fascinating aspects of learned behaviour -- famously bathing in the local hot springs baths -- and those at Kamikochi, which roam the high mountains of Japan's Northern Alps. This images are available as stock photographs of Japanese macaques in the wild and in the Jigokudani Yaen Koen monkey park in Nagano Prefecture.

In my hands, the mask is surprisingly light. It is smooth, somehow luminous, as if lit from within, giving it an eerie beauty. The carved face is that of a woman, unwrinkled though perhaps no longer young. As I look, her smile seems to change from gentle to gently mocking, before becoming, momentarily, an expression of nearly inexpressible sadness. Her eyes appear to be fixed on mine... http://skyehohmann.com/Noh%20Masks%20Wingspan.pdf These images may be available as fine art prints or for licensing as stock photographs on request.

It is hard to imagine a place more vulnerable to the sea than a coral atoll. Barely nudging above the world’s tropical waters, these islands are mere slivers of land, built up over millennia on the coral reefs which crown the now submerged volcanoes. Rarely more than a few metres above the sea level, life clings tentatively to the living reef, the sandy sweep of coast, and tangle of scrubby trees that encircles... http://newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2011/04/21/cosmos-change/ These images of climate change in the Marshall Islands may be available for printing or licensing as stock photographs on request. Please get in touch with me if you are interested in using these images.

In November 2011, almost 9 months after the tsuami devastated the town, I was offered the chance to visit Minamisanriku to participate in and document their "revival market". http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2012/01/07/community/market-network-helps-community-bounce-back/#.UjpAIcZkMuc These images may be available for licensing as stock photographs or as prints on request. Please get in touch with me if you are interested in using these images.

Onbashira is one of Japan's most spectacular festivals. Every six years, sixteen great fir trunks are brought to stand as sacred pillars at the four Grand Suwa Shrines, symbolically rejuvenating the Shinto deity within. Although Japan often presents a unified face to the outside world, Onbashira is exotic even to many natives. The festival, evolved over twelve hundred years, embodies a distinctive and proud local identity. In the face of urbanization and globalization, over a century which has brought the area from rice paddies to railroads and from silk to scanners, the event has become a defining tradition - and tourist draw - for the region. Heavy, handmade straw ropes are attached to the pillars, which can weigh up to ten tonnes. Wearing colourful, traditional costumes, thousands of shrine parishioners hand-pull the logs, with their teams of riders, down from the forested mountains and into the shrines. The Upper and Lower Shrines celebrate the two stages of the festival separately. Early April begins with the long yamadashi ("mountain run"), which is characterised by a short drop followed by a river crossing in the Upper parish, and by a breathtaking and notorious and sometimes fatally risky descent at the Lower. May's satobiki ("town-coming") features dances and parades as the pillars are brought through the town and into the shrine precincts. The pillars are then winched to standing, their riders slowly rising above the cheering crowds, and the festival ends. Participants and spectators alike return to their ordinary lives, punctuated only every half-dozen years by a festival that draws the community together in a spectacle the whole country watches. These images may be available for licensing as stock photographs or as prints on request. Please get in touch with me if you are interested in using these images.

Sanuki - the old name for the Japanese region now know as Kagawa - is famous for its udon noodles. The thick wheat noodles are a local staple, traditionally made from wheat planted in paddy fields before the more valuable rice crop goes in. In 2014 I travelled to Shikoku to eat noodles, and photograph them.

Tsukiji - properly, the Tokyo Central Wholesale Market at Tsukiji - is at the centre of the world's fresh and frozen seafood trade. A mixture of high-tech and ancient techniques, the fast-paced tuna auctions, and the amazing array of seafood make it a truly incredible place. I first visited Tsukiji in 2004, and have been going back occasionally over the last decade to photograph the fish market. Images in this gallery are available for purchase as prints and for licensing as stock photographs.