Photographs from a small group of islands
It is easy to moan about rainy season, but it’s really not that bad when you can go home, get shelter and dry off. Something that Tokyo’s surprisingly large number of homeless obviously can’t do; a population that continues to grow, yet still gets barely any coverage.
Meaning who these people are, and how they got there, seems to be of little importance, even though it’s a journey that surely shouldn’t be necessary.
Faces can give us so many clues about a person, such as their character and the kind of life they have led. Footwear on the other hand, doesn’t.
Or there again, does it?
Photographed in an old part of Tokyo, in the doorway of a rather rickety wooden house, these tattered tatami sandals somehow seem to offer slight hints — or at the very least tantalising tidbits — of not only what their owner might be like, but what they may have been through.
Harajuku’s famous Takeshita Dori is almost infamous for its outlandish fashion. An area where the young and hip happily walk from shop to shop, and people like me wander about wondering what the bloody hell everyone is wearing.
So based on an initial first glance, this older bloke looked like a kindred spirit of sorts — someone who could appreciate my raised eyebrows and bewildered looks.
But as he approached, his skull-emblazoned top suggested otherwise, and his countenance more than likely said I could keep my confused feelings to myself.
It’s impossible to say whether he started drinking early or went at it ’til late, but either way, when most people were looking to get some lunch, all this fella could do was lie down and snore — loudly. A very public display that was done, perhaps appropriately, near the faint glow of a booze sign in the background.
In this day and age we’ve all got the whole world in our hands, but this fella also has it on his T-shirt.
And, even though he’s utterly oblivious to it, he’s got it all around him too.
