Tokyo Times

There are no shortage of Tokyo bars and homes on these pages that have sadly ceased to exist, and whether it be the emptiness of the building left behind, or its complete demolition, they never fail to have an impact, no matter how inevitable such changes always are. The lovely little bar below, on the other hand, is a slightly different story. Or at least I’m pretty sure it is, and so that’s the version I’m content to go along with.

A friend and I drank there in 2019, and the mama-san was happy to serve us drinks and cook whatever was in her fridge. Her house next door fridge that is, as after nearly 45 years in operation, there wasn’t much of a business left. Instead, it was more just a place where you were cheerfully served if you turned up, but if nobody did, it quite clearly didn’t matter in the slightest. A situation very much like this bar once run by a 93-year-old.

And so we had a few beers, a bit of food was rustled up, and it was a genuinely fun experience. But then, some time between our visit and the end of the following year, the bar was demolished, along with the house next door.

In their place, however, is now a shiny new home. One in which the mama-san lives, as I’m fairly sure I saw her through the window.

The vast majority of my photos tend to be taken in the older, eastern areas of Tokyo. Places that in many respects are a world away from the usual image of the city, and yet at the same time they are just as much (if indeed not more) a part of the capital as the bright lights and bustling streets it’s more famous for. The one exception, however, has been Shinjuku. An area that despite its changes and my shifting interests, has remained a firm favourite.

Being a popular entertainment hub, Shinjuku has no shortage of fancy shops and the like, but there’s also so much more. It’s intimate as well as crowded, rough and ready but also refined, plus more than anything, it’s simply interesting, with similarly interesting people. A location that has also been more on my mind of late, as the photobook my friend Giovanni and I recently released (now available to buy here), contains half a dozen photos I took there over the years. Hence this post with those six pictures included.

The book is a visual conversation, so the images were chosen as a response to the previous photo rather than simply picking out some favourites like I’ve done here. The former was often incredibly difficult, but somewhat surprisingly, so was whittling down a set from the many Shinjuku pictures I have. Below then are the ones I settled on. Some inclusions I’ll no doubt question the moment this is posted, along with likely failing to understand why I left one or two others out. But either way, as a whole I still feel they represent a part of Tokyo that has changed enormously, and yet at the same time has barely changed at all.