A small group, within our crew, became photo hiking enthusiasts. Soon, it was not sufficient to just take the photos and pass the film off to processors and await the results. We wanted to develop and manipulate them ourselves.

After checking out a list of equipment required in a simple black & white photo lab, making a few drawings and organizational plans, we were soon constructing a collapsible photo lab we could set up in our barracks. Its design was such that it served as a part of the room furniture, when not in use. The photos were rinsed in wastebaskets under the shower heads in the latrine.

We did not give up on shooting color slides, by any means. But, our collection consists of both black & white and color photographs. Our goal in this section of our web site is to share selected images taken from those many trips, out and about, in rural Japan.

Time and limited reference notes does not permit us to identify each series by exact location or to keep the photos in the order that they were recorded. We will do the best we can to identify the general area involved, in case we have individuals searching for paths or images that might have been familiar to them, at this time in their own history.

Please try and step outside of your own busy, hectic lifestyle, and enjoy poking around in this photo gallery. Photos on this page are samples extracted from each of the divisions of this collection. You may move through the collection by clicking on the listings below.