Ghostly rollercoaster

1 minute

May 19, 2005

As part of Colin Buttimer’s detailed comment yesterday on an old post of mine on images of deserted cities, there’s a link to an astonishing series of photographs of a deserted funfair and rollercoaster, slowly being engulfed by foliage and rust.

It appears to be part of a wider series of equally beautiful photographs of forgotten and neglecting buildings and sites. Here’s the full index. I can’t give further details as it’s in Japanese (I think) – any basic translations would be most welcome, I imagine. (“Paging Mr. Gyford!”)

Deserted funfair

10 responses to “Ghostly rollercoaster”

Phil Gyford

May 20, 2005 at 3:02 am

Heh, I think I’ll need a few more years before I can tackle all that I’m afraid!
Awesome photos — someone must have used it as a filmset before now though, surely? Music videos?

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Phil

May 20, 2005 at 7:06 pm

I wonder if this is the funfair at Pripyat, just outside Chernobyl. I can’t find it now, but I remember seeing a feature about a tour of the area; in the pictures, the Pripyat big wheel had those same enclosed circular gondolas.
More on Pripyat (but no pictures) here.

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dan phillips

May 20, 2005 at 10:22 pm

just paste the web address into google and then follow the translate this link. it starts..
here is various genres in the waste 墟, but it is one Tsuga recreational area waste 墟 of those which by his likes.
Always, it received the information from the one which becomes care, went out to search promptly.

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dan phillips

May 20, 2005 at 10:54 pm

i just wanted to add thanks for posting this link – really beautiful photographs.
The automatic translation is actually quite beautiful in places! There is a picture of a broken ride called “the white dragon’. It says, “The white dragon which is hurt had rested the body on the grass” so much more poetic than, “the broken roller coaster lay on the grass”

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Duncan Ponting

May 22, 2005 at 7:50 pm

Here’s a link to a single picture of the funfair at Pripyat Phil mentions above. You can see the wheel in the background. Link. Not sure if its the same place as Dan’s main photo shows though.

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Dan

May 23, 2005 at 6:13 pm

Clicking through the index of those photos, there’s another astonishing set here:
http://home.f01.itscom.net/spiral/hashima/hashima001.html
Unbelievably spooky. Make sure you click through all six pages if you get the chance (the right-hand button at the bottom of the page).

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Dan

June 8, 2005 at 5:31 am

Things just posted a link to some incredible photos of abandoned Russian, er, things (hospitals, industry, administration complexes etc)

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fairleft

July 7, 2006 at 12:26 pm

They are photos of an abolished amusement park in the Tohoku region of Japan.
I think we will all agree with the writer (photographer?): “There are various genres in the ruins, but one of the things which oneself likes most is the amusement park ruins.”

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fairleft

July 7, 2006 at 12:47 pm

The photographer’s name is Shibakoen Hamutaro, but that’s more a ‘pen name’ than real. Anyway, he asks people to contact her/him if you are interested in ruins photography. You can find the e-mail address at teh bottom of the following page: http://home.f01.itscom.net/spiral/profile.html. Press on メール near the bottom.

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beki jons

March 11, 2007 at 3:29 am

iv got to say i was totaly taken away by most of these photographs lookin through all the diffrent deserted places has got me wanting to go out and hunt down places like this!! amazin

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