Photography

For something similar, but also slightly different, here are the colours and scenes of this year’s spring.

There are many photos from this neighbourhood on Tokyo Times. It’s an area I go to a lot by myself, and with customers on my photowalk tours, as it’s genuinely like nowhere else in the entire city. Also, despite the changes it’s going through, there’s still so much to see and enjoy. A location that’s old, but visiting never gets old, with each outing offering different light, sights and interactions. So here then are some more images from a very recent wander.

A lot of Tokyo’s older businesses are rapidly disappearing — the buildings invariably long past their natural lifespans, and the owners sadly reaching theirs. However, in a city on such a scale, there are fortunately still plenty left to see and enjoy, so these are some I photographed recently. A couple are old favourites, but more than a few are first time finds. All of them though are little pieces of the capital’s past that make the present all the more appealing.

Black and white photography is something I really enjoy looking at. Going out and trying to capture monochrome images, on the other hand, is a process I’ve gradually moved away from, as for a good few years now I’ve pretty much exclusively shot in colour. At some point there was a shift in my thinking, and instead of distracting, I increasingly saw Tokyo’s dazzling array of hues as an integral part of each frame. Key elements of both composition and balance.

Here then are some photos that were a part of that journey, and ones that specifically play with matching colours. Some are obvious, others a little less so, but all were lovely moments of chance and sometimes patience that in many instances also cover my favourite subjects — people and old places.