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Jun 24 2014 8 Comments

Girl in a dingy red light district alley

Tokyo’s Kabukicho red light district isn’t the cleanest of places. Not by any stretch of the imagination, and in every sense of the word too. So it stands to reason than when a cigarette break beckons, the surroundings aren’t exactly what one would call scenic.

girl in a Tokyo alley

Categorized: Photography

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Marc says

    6/24/2014 at 11:31 am

    Wonderful shot, as always. That area is seedy, to say the least. An quite an eye-opener for foreign tourists!

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/24/2014 at 3:54 pm

      Thank you!

      It is that. Wonderfully seedy. And yes, I bet it is!

      Reply
  2. Coli says

    6/24/2014 at 12:41 pm

    Beautiful shot Lee. The colors and atmosphere are great. What were you doing there at that time of the day? 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/24/2014 at 3:58 pm

      Thank you very much.

      Yeah, the colours work really well, don’t they? Oddly vibrant for such a dirty alley.

      And as for my being there, I’m happy to say it was for purely innocent reasons. A friend and I had been out watching the football, so to finish the day off we had a walk and finished up in Kabukicho. Then promptly headed home. Honest!

      Reply
  3. Eric Evans says

    6/24/2014 at 1:09 pm

    Gorgeous. I’ve always admired how you manage to make the squalid appear entrancing.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/24/2014 at 4:00 pm

      Thanks a lot. Very kind of you to say so.

      Places such as this really fascinate me, so it’s great to know that the images have an appeal of their own.

      Reply
  4. Bernadette Marchetti says

    6/25/2014 at 3:25 am

    You always seem to get the most fascinating expressions! He face which seems to have a touch of innocence and vulnerability is in such contrast to her surroundings. But that could just be my own preconceptions of Kabukicho influencing what I see. I’ve always wanted to visit there. For innocent and academic reasons, I swear. It’s quite an historic place. Do you take multiple sequential pictures and then pick out the best one? Or are these a quick shot and then move on?

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/25/2014 at 9:27 am

      Thanks! I was especially pleased with this one in those surroundings.

      It is a fascinating place. Tokyo has many interesting areas, and the likes of Shibuya and Harajuku get an awful lot of attention, but give me Kabukicho any day of the week. At any time of the week too.

      The camera I use doesn’t fire off a rapid number of shots, so it’s generally just a frame or two. With this one, I took one shot from the edge of the alleyway, but I wanted to get a bit closer. So I walked in a bit, and then just as I was about to press the shutter, she looked up. Couldn’t have timed it better if I’d planned it.

      Reply

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