Some scenes, sometimes, simply don’t make much sense.
Simple Tokyo street food
Simple food, prepared in a simple structure, at the side of an old shopping street.
Tokyo youth culture, to corporate culture?
Tokyo disappointment or utter despondency?
When one door closes, it’s sadly not a given that another one will suddenly open.
A beautiful and peaceful abandoned post office
Some haikyo (abandoned buildings) are without a doubt incredibly sad, preserving, as they often do, a very personal document of a total stranger’s life. At the same time, others can be genuinely disturbing, due to the mutilated and decaying recreations of life that have been left behind. But now and again it is possible to find a place that is simply beautiful. Like this old post office that was closed in the early 90s.
Exterior-wise it’s relatively interesting, as it makes a nice change from most modern Japanese buildings. It’s inside, however, where the real beauty lies. A space that despite being small and only sparsely furnished, has a warm, welcoming feel to it, making it a genuinely nice place to simply stand and soak up the atmosphere.
Plus as an added bonus, the adjoining room is slowly succumbing to nature — a sight that is always a pleasure to see.
And finally, as a suitably nice send off, there’s a personal item left by one of the people who used to work there all those years ago.
After way too long, I’ve finally put together an abandoned section in my portfolio site. Imaginatively titled, The abandoned, it highlights some of the things I’ve found in a variety of buildings over the years. To take a look, just click here.
A cool, serious-looking Japanese salaryman
The image of Japanese salarymen generally isn’t a good one. A mere glance at the internet throws up countless stories of monstrous overtime, not to mention all the photos of them drunk and disheveled after similarly excessive over-drinking. But regardless of whether the fella below overindulges at the office, or indeed in the bar afterwards, he definitely has a real sense of intensity about him.
This man, along with many others, appears in a new series I’ve produced for my portfolio. Titled, The Faces, it’s a collection of shots singling out the faces and expressions of (mostly) men in Ueno’s distinctive shopping district. The vast majority of these photos haven’t been posted before, so if you fancy a look, just click here.