Takayama Inari Shrine

Everyone photographs the tunnel of torii at Fushimi Inari in Kyoto, packed shoulder to shoulder. Takayama Inari has something Fushimi does not: its gates run over open ground in a long serpentine curve, so you can stand above them and see the whole line snaking away in front of you like a red spine over the grass. It is the single best torii photograph in northern Japan and there is usually nobody in it.

The shrine sits on a low rise near the Sea of Japan coast in Tsugaru, worshipped for harvests, safety at sea and commerce. The torii line is not ancient — it was built up over roughly forty years — and it curves the way it does because it leads to a Ryujin-gu, a dragon deity hall, and the dragon shape was deliberate. There is a Japanese garden behind, and on a clear day Mt. Iwaki stands behind the whole arrangement.