Inside the Ice — A Singapore Couple at the Lake Shikotsu Ice Festival, Part 2

Part 1 is here: A Singapore Couple at the Lake Shikotsu Ice Festival
→ https://www.lykkephotostyle.com/hokkaidophotowedding/singapore-couple-lake-shikotsu-ice-festival/

The festival ground is wider than it looks from the gate — a field of ice towers, walls and tunnels, all built by spraying water from Lake Shikotsu over frames, day after day, in the middle of winter.

My favourite light here is not the evening illumination. It is the blue that comes through the ice itself, from morning to around midday, when the sun shines into the frozen walls.

• The venue is not ours alone — it is a public festival. We shoot in turn at the popular spots, and sometimes other visitors pass through the background. What we can do is read the moment and build the couple’s own world inside it, frame by frame.
• That is also why we photograph here in the daytime only. In the light-up hours the crowds make it hard to keep a clear space around the couple.

Out to the Lakeshore

The festival ground stands right beside the lake. Lake Shikotsu is known as the northernmost ice-free lake in Japan — even in the depth of winter, the water stays open.

Snowfields, mountains holding their snow, and the lake itself: this is the view the ice is made from.The lake is close to New Chitose Airport, and winter days here turn clear more often than people expect.

Just outside the festival ground, the lake lies open — Lake Shikotsu never freezes, even in the middle of winter.

“Pretend you’re freezing,” I told them — and their acting was so good that the laughter turned real.

締めの一文:

After the lakeshore, we got back in the car and headed for Moerenuma Park — to finish the day with the sunset there.