Food and Drink

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.

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.

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.

Regularly photographing in Tokyo’s older areas means slowly but surely documenting disappearing structures. All too often that sadly involves the loss of life as well. The latter in particular an aspect I didn’t really envisage when starting out.

Now, after so many years, it’s something I’m acutely aware of, especially when a business has closed, or yet another home is torn down. A change that begs all kinds of questions, such as did the owner finally retire, want a change, or worse? Getting answers, on the other hand, is sometimes easier said than done, and the fate of the pickle shop owner below was one such unknown.

His colourful little corner was a part of the street I always enjoyed seeing. Then one day he simply wasn’t there anymore. Gone. No sign indicating why. Nothing. Just an empty space and a new building where he had previously always been. That was 5 years ago, so as time went on, I presumed he had passed away, with only the faintest of hopes that he’d simply pickled one too many vegetables and decided to call it a day.

Then, when once again walking by his old spot just recently, there was an old man sitting there. A sight that stopped me in my tracks. It couldn’t be, could it? What would the odds of that be? Still, I had to check, but bringing up a photo on my phone didn’t convince me either way. The only option then was to go and see, and the smile that immediately spread across his face when I asked gave me the answer I was looking for. An absolutely lovely moment to say the least.

He had indeed retired, and living nearby, he was simply chilling out on his former stomping ground. Maybe he was even reminiscing about all the years he’d spent there. That though is the past, and now, having reached 90, he is happy to relax, watch TV, and perhaps more than anything, not work.