It's hard to deny the inexplicable energy that exists on Iriomote. Part of the island’s magnetism lies in its mesmerizing landscape of mountainous jungle and dense mangroves, its miles of sandy coastline, meandering inlets, and pristine coral reefs. With such undeveloped wilderness throughout the region, it’s no surprise that nature is an inextricable part of Ryūkyūan culture, which remains deeply rooted on Iriomote despite an aging population of elders and a long history of weathering cultural hegemony of China, the United States, and Japan.
And with access limited to boat or ferry from Ishigaki island, there is also Iriomote’s profound sense of seclusion. In my limited visits to Iriomote as a writer and photographer, once in 2017 and again in 2023, I tried to evoke the palpable feeling of isolation that permeated my experience as a visitor there, but it’s a place that requires much more than a few visits to fully grasp. Polish-born photographer Karola Mech felt that power and an immediate connection to Iriomote during her first visit to Okinawa in 2016 and stayed, making it her home and the subject of her photographic practice.
“I loved Iriomote instantly. I felt like, this is it, this is my place,” Mech recalls. “On the last day, I found out about WWOOF-ing (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms) and thought, ‘This is perfect. I can stay for three months, live with the locals, and in my free time I can take photos.’”
Photographer Karola Mech composes a detail shot of a sudina, a traditional garment worn on festive occasions by the women of Iriomote and other Yaeyama islands.
Mech returned for good in 2019 and now lives in the small Iriomote village of Hoshidate, where she works as a cultural guide for visitors to the island. She has made treasured memories through attempts at a more traditional lifestyle on Iriomote—once sharing rice-farming duties with her Hokkaido-born husband. “My husband borrowed the field from our next-door neighbor, Ojīchan (Grandfather),” Mech says. “Rice is a big part of the culture here. There is some machinery to thresh the rice afterward, but it’s all grown by hand.”
When she’s not guiding guests for her tour experience, Cultural Walk Iriomote, Mech is busy building an impressive body of work documenting the culture, traditions, and people of Iriomote. Her time invested in the community as a local resident has allowed her to gain access to private Ryūkyūan rituals and ceremonies on Iriomote and the surrounding Yaeyama and Miyako islands.
It’s an ongoing project that continues to evolve the longer she lives on the island. Her desire to explore the essence of Ryūkyūan beliefs first led her to photographing religious rites on Iriomote, but she has since taken to examining other aspects of life on the island through various mediums, including capturing audio recordings of interviews, songs, and sounds in nature. “I had some concept in the beginning about the role of women in society because Okinawan religion is matriarchal and led by women. I wanted to investigate that, but the project has grown to include more aspects, like the Ryūkyūan languages and the Iriomote dialect, which are disappearing,” Mech says. “But I’m still fascinated by the Ryūkyūan religion, which is ancient and beautiful. It’s all intuitive—I’m following my interests here.”
Long-term documentary photography is inherently an exercise in delayed gratification, but even more so as Mech practices it: using a Rolleiflex camera and analog film. “I will always remember the first time I entered a darkroom—the red light, the dripping water. It was silent, dark, and smelled of chemicals,” Mech says. “To see a complex photograph appearing in the tray was magical.”
Each photograph is an investment of great effort and expense—an act of faith in one’s artistic vision, and in the value of light and instinct as a conduit for interpreting fleeting moments. “I have the same feeling [as that first time in the darkroom] when doing cyanotypes now,” Mech says, referring to the 19th-century printing process that employs light-sensitive chemicals to produce monochrome images in a distinctive blue hue. “After exposing the paper with the blueprint chemicals, the photo appears while it is immersed in water. The magic of a blueprint is that every single one is different, and I never know how it will come out.”
But the thrill of analog photography comes at a price, especially in a place like Iriomote, where Mech must contend with the possibility of losing precious images of local rituals and religious ceremonies—rare windows into a world she has spent years seeking to immortalize in images. “Analog photography is much more hazardous than digital,” Mech says. “Negatives can get light leaks during loading and unloading, storing and developing. They can be damaged in transport or in the fridge if the power is off during a typhoon. Making mistakes during development creates irreversible damage.”
Despite the inherent challenges of such an unpredictable medium, there are moments that have reaffirmed her creative path on Iriomote, making it that much more rewarding when all the elements come together. The first time Mech exhibited her cyanotype photographs at a craft market on Iriomote, an Okinawan elder began to weep at the sight of one of the images. The print, rendered in cyan blue, depicted a tsukasa (Okinawan priestess) in prayer, just as the elder’s own mother, who had also been a priestess, had done when she was alive. “Her tears were the best praise I could have received,” Mech says. “They let me know that what I am doing here makes sense.”
