LIN CHIACHENG

2019.08.30 · Sony A7R III · Tokyo / 2019

Tokyo, 2019: walking made me want to photograph.

Light, alleys and people: a Tokyo note written in 2019, brought together with photographs from that trip.

Person on an illuminated stairway
01 / PHOTOGRAPHS

After visiting Osaka and Iceland in August, I took more than a month to write the second Tokyo post. Walking in Japan kept me pressing the shutter. Even ordinary things along the street often looked good to me.

I photographed a graffiti wall but have forgotten where it was. I liked the wall beside that patch of light. The place slipped my memory; the light did not.

The first photograph is the original post cover. The remaining frames come from the owner’s “2019.04.04 Japan trip” Flickr album linked in the post; this is an album selection, not a frame-for-frame reconstruction of its embedded images. Flickr ↗

Bench and people waiting at a bus stop
02 / Bench and people waiting at a bus stop
Pedestrians passing a phone booth
03 / Pedestrians passing a phone booth
Green embankment and riverside buildings
04 / Green embankment and riverside buildings
Tall buildings behind trees
05 / Tall buildings behind trees
People walking beside blossom trees
06 / People walking beside blossom trees
Pedestrians on a blossom-lined pavement
07 / Pedestrians on a blossom-lined pavement

A street picture I like does not need a famous building. A wall, alley or crossing can look different depending on where the light falls. There is plenty to look at in the backgrounds of these pictures too.

Antenna and building seen through branches
08 / Antenna and building seen through branches
Street lamp among blossom branches
09 / Street lamp among blossom branches
Statues beneath blossom trees
10 / Statues beneath blossom trees
Clock beneath flowering branches
11 / Clock beneath flowering branches
Pale pink cherry blossoms
12 / Pale pink cherry blossoms
Three people posing beside a tree
13 / Three people posing beside a tree

Near Harajuku I tried yuzu shio ramen. The lighter broth, seared pork and yuzu highball were a good combination. It was a shame I could not add more noodles. I wanted to return and try a richer broth too.

Three people posing near blossoms
14 / Three people posing near blossoms
Uniformed person beside a bridge
15 / Uniformed person beside a bridge
Bicycle resting against a railing
16 / Bicycle resting against a railing
People photographing blossoms
17 / People photographing blossoms
Blossoms extending over water
18 / Blossoms extending over water
Crowd beneath blossom branches
19 / Crowd beneath blossom branches

I had seen Shibuya crossing in so many photographs and videos. The number of people still surprised me when I went there. Seeing a crowd in a picture feels different from standing there as people pass.

People along a tree-lined pavement
20 / People along a tree-lined pavement
Pedestrians beside a road with cars
21 / Pedestrians beside a road with cars
Evening sunlight along a tree-lined road
22 / Evening sunlight along a tree-lined road
People walking along a pavement at dusk
23 / People walking along a pavement at dusk
Sunlight through flowers and leaves
24 / Sunlight through flowers and leaves
Large trees in a park at sunset
25 / Large trees in a park at sunset
Park seen between tree trunks
26 / Park seen between tree trunks

Some places look very different by day and night. In daylight I look at where the light falls; at night, at what the lamps illuminate. A change of time gives me something else to see in the same city, and another reason to take a picture.

NOTES

Looking back, it is still the light and shadow along Japan’s streets that draws me in. Every picture does not need a complete story. Sometimes I simply like what is in front of me and press the shutter. This Tokyo trip left plenty of those small moments.

Read the Mobile01 post ↗