For decades, the locals watched on as Rikizo Shima trudged through the streets of Gora, lugging his bulky camera and its wooden tripod in his arms, on his way to shoot his next photograph. Shima, founder of the photography studio now called Shima Cafe Studio, opened his business in Gora in 1919. He took countless photos — shots of local businesses, scenes around Gora Station, views of the mountains — and captured life in Gora through the years on the photographic glass plates used at the time. One of his images, of smoke billowing from the geothermal valley Owakudani, was so compelling that it was selected to be on a commemorative stamp in 1951.