Photographer Stijn Hoekstra’s documentary and commercial work often overlap when assignments take him to incredible locations across the world, with his most recent trip to the island of Hokkaido providing the landscape for a series of true minimal beauty. A pale, snowy place in winter, Hokkaido excelled itself during the three days that Hoekstra wandered through the white out to conjure a collection of images that reveal glimpses of the architectural and infrastructural features of Japan’s northernmost island.
Beautifully balanced compositions bring out the peaceful tones of white that blanket the scenes, with subtle variances in the neutral range of whites and glimpses of texture and pattern in the snow to remind that this is no blank canvas. In Minimal Hokkaido, Hoekstra finds bridges, ravines, and rocky terrain making a break from the drifts. Elsewhere, factories, road signs, houses, cars, and odd swathes of agricultural netting add color to the otherwise untouched whites. Follow Hoekstra’s three days on Hokkaido below.
Images © Stijn Hoekstra