Kusaki Dam Lake

Red steel truss work cuts across the frame above still water at the Kusaki Dam reservoir in Japan, its colour sharp against the layered greens of the surrounding slopes. A power-line tower marks the distant ridgeline to the right, half dissolved in haze. The bridge was photographed from the wall of the dam itself, looking toward mountains dense enough to swallow most of the light. A long lens compresses bridge, ridge and haze into stacked bands.

Kusaki Dam sits on the Watarase River, part of the Tone system. Construction began in 1967 and finished in 1977, about seven years behind the original target, with much of the delay coming from compensation negotiations: the works submerged homes in the valley. The dam provides flood control, water supply to the Tokyo metropolitan area, irrigation and hydroelectric power, and the reservoir it created is now a fishing and tourist lake. In 1973 the Watarase Keikoku rail line was rerouted around the works, including the long Kusaki Tunnel, and the Ashio copper mine upstream closed in the same year. Brett photographed this on 6 May 2016, on the Nikon D810. The bridge is the human line laid across a flooded gorge.