Fat cats adorn wooden wishing plaques at a shinto shrine in Tokyo. The plaques are known as Ema 絵馬, translated as 'picture horse', and are intended to bring luck to the person who hangs them. These plaques funnel a long tradition that started during the 8th century Nara period where people donated horses, seen as the “vehicles of gods”, to the shrines to assist with their prayer. Over the subsequent years due to the financial cost of horses, the tradition shifted first to pictures of horses on wood, and eventually to pictures of other animals. Tokyo, Japan.
Sometimes in life you have to take the road less traveled. An outback track, far western New South Wales, Australia.
A fading vision of the Australian outback as solar pumping takes over as a more reliable source of water, galvanised simplex windmills hold an iconic status in Australian culture pushing the frontier of settlement outwards into areas with no running surface water. Initially imported from the USA and the UK, Australian made windmills first appeared on the market from the 1870s with the development of the Intercolonial Boring Company who manufactured the first Simplex windmill. The white discoloration is a result of the salty bore water as the groundwater from overgrazed lands is becoming increasingly saline. Outback New South Wales, Australia
