With a little spare time right now I’ve begun re-organising my stock image library, sorting through older folders that were created before my current system was created. This is something of a daunting task; from 2014 alone, I have around 4 terabytes of images. Still, it refreshes my memory of many places that have become a little hazy in my mind.

Occasionally I come across images I’d almost forgotten about. This is a yaku sika deer, in a forest on Yakushima Island. Yakushima, Kagoshima Prefecture, is a small, mountainous island, less than 30km across, in Southern Japan. It forms part of the Ryukyu (Nansei) island chain that separates the East China Sea from the open Pacific proper. It’s known for the beautiful cedar forests that cover much of the island. Yaku sika (Cervus nippon yakushimae) are a subspecies of Sika deer endemic to Yakushima Island. They are relatively unafraid of humans, they haven’t been hunted on the island for over 50 years, allowing me to get fairly close to this young stag resting in dappled sunlight in a forest glade.

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Fine Art Landscape and Wildlife Prints