I Tend To Look Out For Items Featuring Trains, Cars And Motorcycles,

and could not help but notice these train inspired posters,

 they are all from JR East, one of Japan’s major passenger railway groups, the company has been running a powerful advertising campaign called Let’s Go, Tohoku (行くぜ、東北), since 2011, in an interview in 2015 Dentsu Director Yoshihiro Yagi, who has been spearheading the campaign, explained that the idea was conceived in the wake of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami because the best way to support the region was to get people to go there,

 now, the campaign has won Japan’s top tourism poster award,

 and here is the thing, when I first looked at them I thought they were from a design/advertising studio that had made the images using computers, but in fact they are real photographs, 

 “There must be something we can do,” Yagi recalls saying, this eventually led to the campaign slogan Let’s Go, Tohoku, which is both a cheer but also a call to action, the posters, now in their 7th year, have largely remained the same in concept and typically feature minimal but powerful photos of trains with the slogan in small, bold letters, at the bottom of the posters, in small font, it reads “You can’t meet by e-mail. Meet on the rails.”

 since 2016 the campaign the photographs have emphasised the geometric properties of the infrastructure like bridges and tunnels that support the trains, but they’re all real photographs with very little digital retouching. “If you look closely some of the trains are quite dirty,” said Yagi, the campaign has won various international advertising awards over the years like the Cannes Lions and the One Show awards, but this recent series was recognised by Japan’s Tourism Poster Contest and took 1st prize out of 231 other entries, trains and photography, what a great combination, 

 speaking of which here are a couple of infrared ones of mine,

that I took on a visit to the top of Soi Siam Country Club, yes I know I am not in the same league, but I am enjoying infrared photography so much I just had to put them on the blog.