Suitably weatherworn old shops on a windy Tokyo day.
Photography
The simple joy of very simply grilled Japanese food
The other week I walked past where the little shack in the last photo was and found a modern, much less shack-like structure going up in its place. The new shop isn’t going to be serving grilled chicken like the old one either, but it will at least be staying in the family, so it’s an evolution of sorts rather than an ending. A sight that led my mind to other, somewhat similar places, which in turn resulted in the series below. A celebration in a way of the simple pleasure of simple food that’s been very simply grilled and seasoned. An always available treat that’s absolutely impossible to tire of, especially when coupled with one’s alcoholic beverage of choice.
For what it’s worth, most of them are Tokyo establishments, except numbers seven and eight, which, if memory serves, were located in Nagano and Hokkaido respectively. Also, aside from the previously mentioned demolition, the only other place I know that almost certainly isn’t a going concern anymore is the stall in photo number four. The rest of them I’m happy to report are (more than likely) still in operation.
Japanese drinks, lanterns and looks
The now standard but incredibly distracting hand sanitiser bottles and vinyl screens make shooting bars a lot more difficult these days. On the other hand, the similarly important need for ventilation can have some visual benefits. Or at least it can for those stood on the outside looking in.
Tokyo’s seen and unseen
An atmospheric old Japanese tourist spot in the fog
Back in September of last year I posted a very similar series of photos, but they were all in black and white as it’s how I envisaged the results when shooting. Thinking about the area recently, however, I decided to go back to the images and see what I thought of them in colour. Unsurprisingly they’re very similar, and yet at the same time they do feel quite different, so deciding which set I prefer is proving extremely difficult. Not that it matters in the slightest I suppose. It’s all incredibly subjective, and moods change, meaning both seem legitimately better, or indeed worse, depending on the day. So whether better or worse, here they are again, along with some extras.
For a bit of background information, it’s one of Japan’s many faded little lakeside tourist spots, but in the fog it took on a completely different look and feel. Before the weather changed, the area was already quiet, with just a few couples wandering about — each one looking around, seemingly unsure of where on earth they had driven to, and why they had done so in the first place. When the surroundings began to rapidly disappear from view, however, so did those last visitors, meaning they missed out on an experience that was almost otherworldly. The dense fog turned the rather melancholy silence into something far more serene, plus what remained visible took on a completely new, and at times almost ethereal quality. A transformation that resulted in a genuine sense of wonder — something that maybe, just maybe, was felt back in the day when business was booming.
