Tokyo Times

A surprising amount of what I see and read about Japan online seems to cover the same topics. The food, manners, modernity, safety, a lack of real poverty, and of course the cleanliness. Elements of the country that are genuine positives. Lots of truth in there too, even if it is just in a comparative sense. What often seems to get lost, however, is that just like everywhere else in the world, Japan has its fair share of problems, meaning for many, life is tough, and those much touted aspects that supposedly make it such a special place are an irrelevance, or worse still, simply don’t ring true at all.

All of which came to mind when I saw the scene below. I’ve photographed this coin laundry before, but seeing it stripped of the lockers it once housed, I assumed it was no longer in use. But I was wrong. It still is. And surrounded as it is by accommodation in a similarly sorry state, it remains the nearest and most accessible option for many.

There are sadly plenty of car park photos on these pages, as all too often they replace old buildings and businesses. This one, however, is very different, as it’s downright comedic rather than disappointing. Unusually for a simple parking space, it also asks questions galore. None of which, it has to be said, are easy to answer in any way whatsoever.

For a while now I’ve mostly been posting small sets of photographs as it’s often easier to try and tell stories, or at the very least hint at them, over a short series rather than just a single image.

This photo, however, feels different. It doesn’t really tell a story either. Instead, it seems to perfectly sum up the sometimes extraordinary nature of what is merely the ordinary. A man walking home through a Tokyo suburb is about as unremarkable as it gets, and yet the scene that presented itself felt, for me at least, quite the opposite.