Each year, farmers in the town of Inakadate in Aomori prefecture create works of crop art by growing a little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety. This year's creation -- a pair of grassy reproductions of famous woodblock prints from Hokusai's 36 Views of Mount Fuji -- has begun to appear (above). It will be visible until the rice is harvested in September.
The residents of Inakadate have been drawing pictures with rice since 1993. Here are a few crops from the recent past, found at this site.
2006
2005
2002
While Inakadate is Japan's most famous rice paddy decorating town, a couple of other places in Japan have joined in the fun.
Yonezawa, Yamagata prefecture, 2007
Yonezawa, Yamagata prefecture, 2006
Nishio, Aichi prefecture (2005, 2006)
UPDATE (Oct 1, 2007): Check out photos of the 2007 harvest HERE.
royalestel
Holy heck, that's awesome!
[]Daniel
That's like SO photoshopped, it's not even funny.
[]Sarcastic Know-It-All
That's, like, SO retarded that you think it's photoshopped, it's not even funny.
[]Braxx
*gigglesnort*
[]Arse
That gigglesnort was SO photoshopped, it's not even funny.
[]Pox
That comment was SO photoshopped, it's not even funny.
Roady
That Photoshop was SO unfunny, it is. comment
anon
c-c-c-combo breaker
James Barker
uuuuuuuuuuuultraaaaa COMBO!
wuan
wow this got out of hand
anony
It's called Tanbo Art. It's a real thing.
[]Smarter
Wtf man ur so dumb seriously you prob have no clue what photoshop even is..
[]GeeBee
That's why we need more art education in schools. Somebody sees an imaginative work of art, and they think it is Photoshopped because there is no way that people can create art with almost anything. People are beginning to not even believe what is in front of them. This is awesome. I've always admired the artistic sensibilities of the Japanese...
[]Contented Agreer
THUMBS UP YES.
[]allou
pretty sure he's trolling. Japanese...
[]anon
It's clearly photoshopped, I am an expert and can tell by the pixels.
[]James
loser
[]KnowIdea
Well I'm in expert in "D-bags" and you are a D-bag for sure. I can tell because of the pixels.
[]robyn
those little grainy "pixels" you are seeing are in fact grains of....CROPS! HOLY SHIT! (spits on you)
[]c-man
you idiots. he's trolling.
[]soup
i prefer images without pixels
[]Anne Onee Moose
Ah, so you've a tentacle fetish then? :3
[]enough is enough
i've seen enough hentai.
[]Russiyanec
????????? ?????? ??? ??????:))
[]Andy
Reminds me of corn mazes: http://tisinger.wordpress.com/2007/07/12/sweet-corn-mazes/
[]psa
rofl at everybody who thinks any of that is not photoshopped
[]Shay
WOW that's cool. While they look kinda real they look too perfect to be. They still look neat even if someone photoshopped these. If they were real they'd be like 100 times cooler then crop circles/corn maze/any other corn-related design ^.^\/
[]Stephanie
Bravo! Absolutely brilliant! Thank you for putting this together. I have seen one rice paddy like this while flying over Japan and had so many questions about the planning and logistics of this project. It appears that the farmers who do this have a tremendous job ahead of them when taking on this sort of work but that's what makes them so amazing.
[]jorge
well I I imagine they did it by first separating the picture into rows of pixels and then just planting the seeds of the respective tone or variety according to the pixel that is supposed to go next. or something like that..
[]CPS
For those who insist that it's photoshopped, take a look at the time series:
http://www.vill.inakadate.aomori.jp/ricecroptour/html/ricecroptour_progress_h18.html
[]grizzy
Everything in the whole wide world is not photoshopped. The Japanese are very artistic and I applaude this work. I have a friend who has seen one of these from the air.So I had heard about the pictures without knowing how they were done. Thank you for sharing this.
[]allou
whoa your friend saw a photoshopped picture in the air?
[]wow-ps
wow, mediocre photoshoping.... i'm so excited
[]allou
ME TOO BITCH
[]Mike in Japan
It's real and has been for years. It's on Japanese local news TV every year, there are MANY MANY towns that do this, and people come from all over Japan to see it. I know, because I have been living in Japan for over 8 years. Those of you who think it's Photoshoped are just sad ignorant people. Your lives must be empty.
[]javier
k mamada piche photo shop tan mas trukeado. lo k es no tener k hacer!!!!
[]Aeruin
Anyone who bothered to click through the links would have seen this, disproving the sad and cynical photo shop theory.
[]W.
The images are photoshopped: everyone knows that rice grows in 25 lb bags at the Asian grocery mart.
But I didn't realize that "mediocre photoshopping" was pronounced FARMING.
[]Doug
Go to the town's website and there's pics of it being planted. No photoshop.
http://www.vill.inakadate.aomori.jp/
[]Cecilia quevedo
ESPECTACULAR
[]Joe Lindley
Wow. All I can say. It made me think we should turn the whole world into a canvass..... :o)
[]Jackie Aldridge
Bravo! Great work !
[]Joe Lindley
Do you think these will be on google earth?
[]antonio ferraz
very happy
[]ori hilal
making of in video ????
[]John Galt
Anyother culture I'de say photoshop, but this is the japanese...
[]Neal Rubensrein
How many people do the originals feed?
[]Anonymous
For the planning and logistics of this project ahead of planting rice, you have to make a fine map(probably from a high resolution picture in computer). It appears that the farmers who do this have a tremendous amount of job. But I don't think this is worth as the art.
What for do they do this ? Is this project for the tourism promotion ? If not, I find it ridiculous because this project doesn't produce anything. There are so many problems in the world to solve. I wonder they don't have anything else to do in Inakadate Village in Aomori prefecture ?
[]ula salinas
what a ridiculous statement. why would it need to produce anything,although im pretty sure this rice is edible. what of the american art of pumpkin carving? smoetimes art is sufficient unto itself
[]scott
wow you are an awful cynic
[]X
Doesn't Anonymous have anything better to do than be hypercritical on the internet?
It's art for fuck's sake. Do you know what art is?
[]yar
I'm afraid there's no high-rez shots of the area in google maps:
(link)
[]don gorgon ichiban
BEAUTIFUL .. AWESOME ...INCREDIBLE
advanced Japanese technology is indeed magnificent
KUDOS to the rice farms that obviously excel in many area's
i trust the next generation will maintain these traditions
[]c-monster
looove it.
[]Jan Wikholm
Woah. Insanely cool :)
[]phio gistic
[…] Got Rice Bitch? […]
I guess that is an appropriate response to "Pimp my rice paddy."
[]FYI, "pimp" means to sell someone into prostitution. Pimps call women 'bitches.' Think about what you write and how it affects people. "Pimp" isn't a good way to describe interesting works of art. It isn't a good way to describe anything positive.
Haha
You must be joking. How will this affect anyone? And the word pimp has taken several meanings, so in this setting it is meant as making something more beautiful. You're a perfect example of political correctness gone wrong.
[]Babarosa
Maaa, mezarashi, subarashi!!!!!
[]Virginia Lee
Gorgeous! Thanks so much for posting these photos. I came in via a link from Food History.
Great stuff.
[]Suicide
These are beautiful. I had no idea that they did this. I can not phantom the work that goes into planting rice just so for these pictures to appear.
I now think I know where aliens got the idea for crop circles ;0)
[]recetas de cocina
Amazing! O_O
[]Steph
Doesn't the artwork have to be stretched out to be viewed as foreshortened from above? I mean, like those chalk paintings?
http://www.coolopticalillusions.com/chalk-art/globe-sidewalk-chalk-paintings.htm
[]Mark Nelson
Thanks,
[]I will be sure to show this to my students who are learning about public art!
zamri
Joe Lindley
Do you think these will be on google earth?
__________________
yupp. The Crop Circles and even you can count car park beside the road.But the pproblem is google earth only provide zooming at this level only at certain location.
------------------------------------
[]http://www.airkita.my
bobroberts
this page is shopped, noone heres actually said anything, some grandmaster shopper has faked this whole ordeal. I know cuz ive seen many shops of this magnitude.
[]You're_an_idiot
Go and have a quick look on Google (or search engine of your choice) Type in "rice paddy art".
Do you really think this "High magnitude grandmaster shopper" faked all those sites as well?
Oh, and learn to use some punctuation fool.
[]Joe Anderson
I wish I could see these in person - I certainly enjoyed looking at them on my compter. Perhaps someone would like to sponsor my coming to Japan - I will be attending middle school this coming fall.
Thank you again for sharing with us.
[]crella
They're broadcast live on the news. What's the sense in photo-shopping when people would just go and not find them? They are quite a tourist draw for the area.
There's a couple in every crowd, aren't there? The 'everything is fake!' crowd. Get outside a little more often, it'll be good for you...
[]D W Moor
After many months of research and travel I have learned the true nature/source of these pictures. They are real. No Photo-Shoppe in these at all. I have actual pictures of the real thing I will be glad to produce/share. It blew me away enough to make me want to prove/disprove it's existance. PROOF is in the eyes of my family and I as well as many pictures and writings as well as some video into the history and nature of this cultural art. I spent 8 months in Japan, in the area of Inakadate/Aomori, and spoke with the residents/farmers who are more than proud of their work. For a better understanding of the art pleae visit ashita-sanuki.jp/arttakamatsu/.
[]G. Dogg
FAKE!
[]Badger
FOOL!
These are really lovely aren't they? So cool too that every year they do different works of art.
I don't think it would take that long to plan them out using computers. You really need to just plan the angle it'd be viewed at, then pixelise the image and overlay it over the modified grid.
If you think these are impressive you have to see the chrysanthmum dolls the city of Nagoya make for their annual festival. Every colour on the clothes of these life-sized dolls are chrysanthmum flowers - and they're planned and grown in situ so that very complex patterns are literally grown into the surface of the clothes.
http://www.humanflowerproject.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the_dolls_of_hirakata/
These are some very basic ones.
The other upside of these rice field pictures is that yes, they DO produce rice. Why would "anonymous" have said that nothing was produced?? Some people are very strange...
[]Jeremy
Uhh...farmers in America do this with fields all the time, I don't see why everyone's like "omg Japanese people are so awesome why don't we do this". I'm guessing typical internet nerd fanwank over anything Japan-related.
[]Kevin
Farmers in this village that create this field artwork do it for nothing but pure fun or joy. Why do painters paint what they paint? I don't understand why people can't appreciate this beauty for what it is and then resort to labeling it as "photoshop."
[]seo essen
It is definitely not Photoshop!
[]I feel these halfwit morons go looking for images on the interwebs and say that everything is photoshopped just to make waves.
This is pure art!
SaladFingers
you're a moron.
[]afcles
very very cool
[]wish there was some like this in uk
Ex2bot
(pulling out whiteboard) Let me explain the prank to yous who need it:
Pick a random website with pictures of about anything. People comment on how interesting the pictures are. Prankster comes along and leaves a comment about how the pix are obviously "shopped." Hilarity ensues as several people believe prankster is serious. Of course, some of these may be pranksters themselves, feigning outrage.
(whiteboard stowed)
Ex2bot
[]Prank-clarifying automated bot
pplaredum
they are not photoshopped any of you guys ever heard of GOOGLE geez
[]george
whoooaaaw, at first I thought these were photoshopped. After some time and searching, These are actually real.
[]CULOGORDO
TOTALLY FAKE ASSHOLES!!!
[]joebyrd
sad that its all gone now
[]Leave it Colder
Ooooook so the theory behind this artwork is real but obviously photo shopped in this particular case. Check out the first and second photos from the top and notice they are on the same supposed crop of land, the first photo being a hundred or so yards in front of the second photo and taken at two different angles, if they were real you would be able to see both the first and second crops in the first photo. Although the real crops that are grown in this manor are spectacular to see airborne when it comes to these photos its not rocket science you pretentious bastards.100% photo shopped.
[]Dawn
Well if you bothered to actually read the article, you will find that those pictures were taken in different years...
[]doodler
The colours don't seem right, theres not enough variation in the excessivly bright green. There should be some sort of shaddow to suggest multi layer. As the bright green is the part where the crops have been cut, and therefore should be nearer ground level, and should have a slightly darker hue. Blacks are too black, how do you make crops black anyway, apart from burning them?
The images themselves haven't been skewed enough, they should sit on a plane more familiar to the the ground, and they clearly are not.
Conclusion - clearly shopped.
[]bull
japan is SO photo-shopped.
[]Larry Griffith
LOL. The smug idiots that think this is photoshopped spoke too soon. I've been there and seen them, so do at least a tiny little bit of research before you act like a douche. Here are tons of images of how they do this, including close-ups.
[]http://www.google.com/search?q=rice+paddy+art&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=XcFbTu6_DoKcgQfztO2YDA&ved=0CDEQsAQ&biw=1144&bih=583
Anna
I used to go see these every year! Definitely not photoshopped. That's my hometown. I would know.
[]LOL
Just because something looks fake doesn't mean that it is!
[]