9 years ago I did an amazing Hokkaido road trip with one of my best buddies. We explored some spectacular famous locations (*Glückskönigreich*), we explored some spectacular not so famous locations (*Hokkaido Ski-Jumping Hill*), and we explored some completely obscure locations where a single photo made the place spectacular – like the Black Mirror Hotel!
The Black Mirror Hotel was actually a rather small, completely trashed, run-of-the-mill abandoned hotel in the outskirts of a large city in Hokkaido, 4 kilometers away from the next train station, no bus stop nearby. It is absolutely beyond me why anybody would build accommodation like that… or why anybody would stay there. Upon entering I also wondered why anybody would explore the place, because at first sight it really was the worst kind of abandoned places there is, combining pretty much everything I dislike about urbex. But we made it all the way to central Hokkaido, so we could as well have a closer look. Trash, vandalism, mold. Misery within seconds. Towards the end of the trip or late in the afternoon instead of early in the morning, first location of the day actually, I probably would have left after a few minutes, but… again… we traveled all the way to central Hokkaido. On the ground floor I found one of those mechanical boxing toys – one of the figures looked like an in-shape version of the orange peril, who had just become president for the first time and was years away from bombing girls’ schools in Iran, so I had a giggle about that.
The upper floor also was in bad shape, though not as horrible as the ground floor. At one point I found myself in the door frame of a room and I thought it might be cool to take a photo of a TV in one of the corners… or rather alcove. Imagine the following setup: I was standing at 6, the TV was at 3, facing across to the room towards 8 – the upper half of the dial gone. I put my tripod on the ground, pointed the camera towards the TV, probably knee-high, took a photo, and then moved on. The shared baths weren’t anything special either, most rooms were trashed by vandals and/or metal thieves, so after a little over an hour we finally called it quits and moved on to the next location.
It wasn’t until a few days later back home, when I had a closer look at the photos I took on a larger monitor, that I realized that there was one special gem amongst the hundreds and hundreds of photos I took on that trip. This photo of a TV wasn’t just a photo of a TV – it was a perfect black mirror shot! On the screen of the TV you could see a reflection of the room with the tatami mats, cushions, a round lacquer box and several other items – everything extremely well-framed. It almost looked like as if the TV was running, but of course it was off. Till this very day I consider it one of my best photos, even though or maybe because there was so much luck involved. On a sunny day the room would have been too bright. On any height other than the lowest, the tripod would have been too tall. Any angle other than the one I pointed the camera at by chance would have changed what’s visible on the TV.
The Black Mirror Hotel was one of the worst locations I’ve ever explored – but it gave me one of the best photos I’ve ever taken!
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