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In 2020 & 2021, Kyoto’s crowds of tourists disappeared, offering a unique chance to capture the city’s natural beauty without distractions. Empty Kyoto is a compilation of these photographs.
As the center of Japan’s culture, and capitol for over 1000 years, Kyoto has often been bedeviled by overtourism. In 2020 & 2021 however, the crowds disappeared, offering a unique chance to capture the city’s natural beauty without distractions.
Empty Kyoto is a compilation of these photographs, a document of this once-in-a-lifetime period.
Everyone was told to stay home, the border was closed, and things were just… empty. Kyoto became peaceful, quiet, zen. It was oddly spiritual.
I had the luxury of being able to photograph these places – temples, gardens, streets, rivers – practically alone. Public transportation was discouraged, but many of the places in the book were walking distance from my home. And they were open.
Empty Kyoto grew out of an article that originally appeared in KJ Issue 105, and it was published after a successful Kickstarter funding campaign.
Photographer Daniel Sofer is frequent contributor to Kyoto Journal.
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Recipient of the Commissioner’s Award of the Japanese Cultural Affairs Agency 2013
in Kyoto, Japan.