With the heat of the last few months now finally losing its intensity, here are some photos from Japanese summers past. Hot and humid days that were different in so many ways, and yet ultimately perhaps not that different at all.
An old school Tokyo booze shop with Super Cub delivery
This old Tokyo off-license has fascinated me for years. From the signs to the crates to the suitably askew awning — there’s just so much to like and take in. The trouble was, the shutters were almost always down, and even when they weren’t, there was never anybody about. Until last week that is, when the owner finally appeared, and with his retro helmet, traditional apron and trusty Honda Super Cub, it was all suddenly well worth the long wait.
The silence and decay of an abandoned Japanese mountain village
Over the last few years I’ve had the good fortune to photograph several abandoned mountain settlements not that far from Tokyo. There was this surprisingly large collection of houses and buildings, some remarkably intact homes of former forestry workers, and the crumbling structures of a long-empty hamlet.
This latest find doesn’t contain quite as many personal items as the others, but what it lacks in old photos and possessions, it makes up for in atmosphere. The late August heat and humidity meant there was no shortage of greenery, but at the same time the foliage blocked out a lot of the summer sun to create a suitably fitting half-light of sorts.
There are also enough houses and decay to offer intriguing hints about the lives once lived there, and indeed how long it has been since the last resident left. A slowly disappearing time capsule that is very much of a particular period and place, and yet there’s also a distinctly universal element at play as well, evoking as it does those ever-present human preoccupations of impermanence and the relentless passage of time.
Tokyo pizza and poverty
The human cost of round-the-clock convenience?
The life cycle of an old Tokyo house and its elderly owner
This first photo was taken back in the summer of 2014. It remains a firm favourite of mine — a scene I’m fond of for so many reasons, and the memory of pressing the shutter is still so fresh it almost feels like it was taken yesterday.
The next time I walked past is similarly clear in my mind, as I was shocked to find the house abandoned and empty. A home once so full of life was suddenly utterly bereft of it — even the colours weren’t there anymore. A structure so instantly recognisable, and yet at the same time so completely different.
Over time the only real sign of life was a plant that made it through the wall and into the kitchen. A poignant, and in many ways apt reminder of the resilience that once defined the house and its elderly owner.
And now, almost exactly 7 years to the day since that first photo, the cycle is in some ways complete. The building is gone, but the colour has returned, and if one blinks or squints a little, there’s also a fleeting reminder of the old lady who once lived her life there.
