Yu walking a curving road in Ikeshima-machi beside a steel guardrail and yellowed winter scrub.
Yu walking a curving road in Ikeshima-machi beside a steel guardrail and yellowed winter scrub.

Yu on the Road

Provenance

Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Kodak Portra 400 · 35mm · ISO 400
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A lone figure with a backpack walking away along a curving road. White edge line and a steel guardrail on the right. A bank of winter-yellow scrub, then a hillside of trees and silver grass above. Overhead wires crossing the frame. No other people or vehicles. Soft daylight without hard shadows.

Edition
Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD
Size
Type
Colour
✓
Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.
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In situ

A person in a light blue coat walks away up a curving road on Ikeshima, his long shadow stretched across the asphalt and yellow-green scrub crowding the rusted guardrail to the right.A person in a light blue coat walks away up a curving road on Ikeshima, his long shadow stretched across the asphalt and yellow-green scrub crowding the rusted guardrail to the right.A person in a light blue coat walks away up a curving road on Ikeshima, his long shadow stretched across the asphalt and yellow-green scrub crowding the rusted guardrail to the right.A person in a light blue coat walks away up a curving road on Ikeshima, his long shadow stretched across the asphalt and yellow-green scrub crowding the rusted guardrail to the right.A person in a light blue coat walks away up a curving road on Ikeshima, his long shadow stretched across the asphalt and yellow-green scrub crowding the rusted guardrail to the right.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Yu on the Road
Series
Ikeshima
Catalogue
IKE-008
Process
Giclée
Captured
18 January 2026
Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Kodak Portra 400
Format
35mm
Film ISO
400
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Location
Ikeshima, Nagasaki, Japan
Recognised by
Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards
02 LOCATION

Ikeshima, Nagasaki, Japan

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

Yu walks the curve of a road in Ikeshima-machi, backpack on, following the white edge line between a steel guardrail and a bank of scrub gone yellow for the winter. The hillside above him is a wall of trees and silver grass, a few wires cross the frame overhead, and there is nobody else in sight in either direction. He is taking the island in at walking pace, which is the only pace it offers now.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Yu walks the curve of a road in Ikeshima-machi, backpack on, following the white edge line between a steel guardrail and a bank of scrub gone yellow for the winter. The hillside above him is a wall of trees and silver grass, a few wires cross the frame overhead, and there is nobody else in sight in either direction.

Brett Patman

Ikeshima

The series

Ikeshima

1959 to 2001 · 54 photographs

Ikeshima Coal Mine operated beneath the seabed off Nagasaki from 1959 until 29 November 2001, making it the last new coal mine to open in Japan and the last large-scale underground colliery to close. At its 1970 peak the island held 7,770 residents on a 0.86 km² rock in the Gotō Sea, housed in company-built concrete towers above a mine that reached 650 m below sea level.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.

Anatomy · true ratio
07 MORE FROM IKESHIMA

53 other prints in this series

All prints
Dim office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, a white hard hat and a cup on two desks below a buckled venetian blind.
Hard Hat$100.00
View from an apartment window in Ikeshima-machi, utility pole and wires above silver grass with the Matsushima power station chimney across the sea.
Apartment Window$100.00
Window in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, glass gone and a creeper hanging in over the sill above the sea.
Ocean Outlook$100.00
Pithead bath in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, concrete troughs on a tiled floor with a vent fan on the far wall.
Pithead Bath$100.00
08 BY POST · NO SPAM

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