Culture

Jun 29 2020 14 Comments

A tourist-free traditional Tokyo wedding

Rainy season, it has to be said, isn’t the nicest time of year. The humidity ramps up enormously, and, as the name suggests, it tends to rain rather a lot. Yet despite such unpleasantness, June is a popular month to get married in, and probably just as popular as a venue is Tokyo’s Meiji Shrine. A money making machine that at the weekend sees up to around 15 weddings in a single day.

Given the surroundings and the ceremonial outfits, the public procession element of each service is quite the spectacle. An aspect that used to garner a huge amount of attention due to the shrine being a popular tourist spot, but it was just me and a young family watching on Saturday. One of the many very visible changes of the world we now live in. A new world in which this young couple are starting a new life in. But it’s a journey they are embarking on together, and one that started out in some style to say the least.

Mar 23 2020 11 Comments

Kimono east meets west meets smartphone

A melding of cultures as well as imaginative smartphone storage.

Mar 06 2020 4 Comments

Kimono friendship and flowers

Bright colours on a bright day with matching flower motifs as an added bonus.

Mar 04 2020 9 Comments

The sun setting on a shuttered Tokyo shopping street

A few months ago, I photographed and wrote about danchi, or Japanese public housing. Born in the 1950s and peaking around the early 70s, this massive building project created affordable and modern housing for the nation’s growing number of young families. Fast forward to the present day, however, and many of these once futuristic apartment complexes are more crumbling relics than sought after properties.

The same also goes for the little shopping precincts that were an integral part of some danchi. Once bustling with locals, a considerable number have gone the same way as the apartments above them. Changing habits, an older demographic and fewer residents making business not only harder, but in many cases simply unsustainable.

And below is one such shopping street. A few stores on the main road are bravely battling on, but while the days and weeks come and go, the sun has long since set on this particular part of Tokyo.

Feb 14 2020 12 Comments

A colourful kimono on a cold and windy day

The blustery weather was absolutely biting, but the colours of this kimono and the late afternoon sun at least offered the suggestion of some warmth.

Jan 29 2020 8 Comments

Buddhist street musician surprise

Tokyo is a city of contrasts, as well as constant surprises, so even if you know what’s round the next corner, you never really know what you are going to see. It could, for example, be a Buddhist playing a bamboo flute. Or possibly even more unexpected, a foreign person taking photographs.

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