Tokyo Times

Back in September 2016, I took this photo, in a certain way, and at a certain time of the day.

Then last week I took another photo in more or less the same spot, but this time in a different way, at a different time of the year, and under considerably different lighting conditions. An exercise that seemed entirely fitting, as the wonderfully arranged streets are themselves now slightly different.

There were numerous drafts of this, but none of them felt appropriate, or managed to capture the horribly poignant nature of that jarring English phrase. Then it dawned on me that the words in the photograph said something, but at the same time had absolutely zero substance, and that seemed entirely fitting considering how the problem of poverty is almost always approached.

There’s a lot to like about Tokyo, but as far as descriptions of the city go, laid back generally isn’t one of them. And yet that said, Sunday mornings surely don’t get much more serene than this.

I had the pleasure of walking past this small but well looked after urban garden on numerous occasions. Its owners, on the other hand, I only saw twice — on the two different days these photos were taken.

Several years ago, however, the house was demolished, leaving behind a sad, tarpaulin covered empty plot. It stayed that way for a while, but now it’s a home again. Several homes in fact. But all signs of previous life have been completely and utterly erased.