Photographs from a small group of islands
Just like every city, Tokyo has its problems and regular irritations, but one of the capital’s many positive attributes is the sheer variety of sights and scenes it’s possible to see on a daily basis. These then are some moments and unique locations spotted on an unexpectedly less than warm meander during the middle of last week.
Last week I photographed the lady in the first frame. Her shop is always a treat to see. A truly tiny one, yet a space packed with numerous books on the likes of audio gear and transistors.
Located in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, it’s a real throwback to the area’s post-war period, when it was the place to go for handmade radios and their components. The beginnings of what later became known as Electric Town, a moniker the location still has. However, times change, and anime, manga and maid cafes now hold increasing sway, making stores like the woman’s a rare connection to that DIY and very different past.
Her father started the shop after the war, and she has been running it for about half a century, but now in her late 80s, she’s not sure how long she’ll go on for. Two similar and just as small businesses were also located in the same, narrow passageway, but they closed several years years — photos of which I’ve included. The lady retired at the grand old age of 93, and the fella rather earlier, although sadly not by choice, as health issues and the need to look after his elderly mother made that decision for him.
So now only the bookshop remains. The last of Electric Town’s old school little outlets. A business she’s set on continuing while she can, and just like her friends and former neighbours, she’ll do so with a similarly lovely smile.
Over the last few months I’ve posted several series documenting old and dilapidated Japanese markets. Once busy locations that are now mostly shuttered — their time as functioning businesses rapidly running out.
This one, however, is very much a going concern, but due to its wonderfully dated signs and appealing colours, I opted to take most of my photographs both after dark and at the end of the working day. A choice that hopefully allows those key aspects to shine through, along with the solitary calm such places possess when most of the people have gone home.
Despite still being part of the capital, the far west of Tokyo can sometimes feel like another world, let alone merely a different city. For starters the area is incredibly green, but it’s also mountainous, and comparatively at least, very sparsely populated. Elements that together make even the briefest of visits feel like a welcome break.
Just like other parts of the metropolis, it also has the same wonderful knack of providing unexpected surprises. The sight of a slowly rotting Mercedes isn’t necessarily what you’d expect. Nor was the the pleasure of seeing a sheltered seat looking out from naturally sheltered surroundings. And yet that said, neither of those were anything like as unforeseen as the dolls we found in an abandoned house. A traditional old home full of far from traditional items.
Sometimes, some walks, offer up a pleasing array of scenes that one way or another fit nicely together. Often it’s colours, or certain themes, and every now and again, it’s a lovely combination of the two. A mix I got on this recent meander, when everything somehow sort of just worked out.
Shooting at night, or in the rain, isn’t the kind of photography I do a huge amount of. Manually focusing while holding an umbrella always makes the latter less appealing. The relative lack of the former, on the other hand, is harder to explain, except perhaps that when meandering around after dark, an old and character filled little bar can easily feel like the more enticing option.
This small series of images then was taken recently on one of my Tokyo Photowalk Tours, a walk that provided the perfect reason to be out and about when normally I wouldn’t have been. Designed to cover the quiet and busy, people versus no people, it proved to be a fun and varied combination. The resultant photographs also turned out quite pleasing, which will hopefully give me the requisite push to make similar walks a more regular part of my personal work.
