Steve Kretzmann

With Japan’s flatter coastal zones becoming too cramped for a growing population, creating roads and level surfaces in the mountainous inland regions is the next logical step. Stabilising these slopes and balancing the tension between natural beauty and human habitation has created challenging engineering feats which have resulted in fascinating designs, some of which are colossal in scope. This is where Shibata has focussed his eye. Shibata is no environmental activist, however. His photographs do not condemn nor justify, they merely reveal isolated frames of this human expansion.