If you’ve read any of the previous few blogs you may have seen that I travelled to Japan in June of 2025 to concentrate on my practice of photography for a period of two weeks. The details about where I went and what I did whilst there can be found in these posts.
Part 1: Tokyo, Part 2: Kyoto, Part 3: Osaka
This post though will detail a few of my favourite captures on digital sensor during the journey. When I say favourite I mean that it is a photo I really like, it might be due to the lighting, composition, subject, or centext. Everybody has their own subjective opinions about what pleases them so some of these might appear to be a little strange, but just know that I like them and this is the reason I enjoy going out and making images with a camera. I will talk technical details of the settings for each photo and even som e of the logic behind my reason for making the image and even some context. There are many images on this post, but to split it up I think would not work so well.
Stationary
This image was made on my first day in the world’s most populated city, Tokyo. I was playing with shutter speed and trying to blur movement, either movement of the trains or the movement of the people. this particular man caught my attention as he was standing on the correct spot on the platform, perfectly upright, staring into nowhere. The metro train behind him was leaving the station so I had dropped the shutter speed to 1/30th sec and was using my Leica Q3 with the aperture at f/5.6 and an ISO set to 100. The fixed 28mm f/1.7 lens on this camera is ideal for street photography and I love how it captures details in the foreground and all the way through the image.
Unlike the London Underground where people barge at the doors in no sense of order, the Japanese have queue lines on the floor of the platform that encourages travellers to stand in an orderly fashion, ready to take your turn at entering the train. The image conveys the order and the compliance of the rail users. They sit in their chairs on the train making zero noise, careful not to accidentally offend any other person. The plush seats are similar to those on London’s tube network but are generally clean and tidy with zero litter to be found. The number of hoops hanging from above hints at just how packed this carriage could be if it were the rush hour.
I like this image for the reasons mentioned above but its not technically a perfect photographic image, there are some distractions and most people who have seen the photo tend to not notice the train moving in the background. Im ok with this, as a memory of Tokyo and the Metro system it stands to remind me of the order and control possible. Which is the opposite of other trains where people are absolutely crushed together with hardly space to breathe.
Shisa Kanko
Staying on the metro/subway system for a moment, my second photograph depicts a Train Conductor with his head out of the window performing the act of Shisa kanko, where they monitor, point and call out the steps of leaving a station. They can often be seen pointing at the doors, the signal lights, the platform based staff and when the train moves out they remain focussed on being prepared to stop the train quickly, in the event of a passenger or technical issue.
The conductors do this on almost every train, but there are some rare occasions where I saw no conductors. I tried different recipes to capture a photo of these staff carrying out their duties to the letter, some images were fast shutter speed, some slow, some panning with the train and some stationary whilst the train moves past.
This particular capture feels dynamic to me with the conductors features stretched out in time. The settings were 1/30th second with an aperture of f/8.0 and an ISO of 800 and was taken on my way to the Mori art buildings Tokyo City View. The movement in the image comes from the train moving through the platform whilst I stood and captured the shot hand held. The 800 ISO was required due to the station being completely underground with no natural light available. If I had wanted to capture a more crisp shot with no blurring I would have sped up the shutter speed but this would then increase the ISO or lower the aperture. that pesky exposure triangle in action again.
Towering View
The next two images are from the Tokyo City View observatory where I had gone to gain some altitude and look out over the city of capital of Japan. It’s a viewing gallery around the top of the Mori building about 250m above sea level, and on a clear day the view is amazing, so Im told. On this particular day it was less than perfect conditions with a low cloud and rain that prevented a view of anything but the very nearby areas. Tokyo Tower is around 1.5km away from the observatory, yet was covered above the main deck for most of the time.
This image was made after a few photos from the glass, of the area in front the tower. The view was less than inspiring and when I stepped back to see if there were any interesting compositions I noticed this young woman posing for a photograph, being taken by her partner. She had her elbows up as if using a pair of binoculars to observe the painted orange tower.
This photo was shot at 1/500 sec, f/8.0 at ISO3200. The aperture needed to be narrower than a f/1.7 or I wouldn’t get the tower in focus in the background, it would have bokehed out. Due to the lack of light in the room where I was, and the grey flat light that the foggy mist was producing outside the glass the ISO was stepped up to 3200, but I could have brought this down if I had reduced the shutter speed from 1/500th to 1/125th sec. The only issue with dropping the shutter speed is that the subject, in this case th e young woman, would be blurred if she had moved. Moving was what she was doing, a lot of too. She and her partner were clowning around posing in many different poses and I felt that 1/250th might have been ok but was playing safe with a 1/500th. The ISO on the Leica Q3 of 3200 produces some great photos and whilst they contain some digital noise (similar to film grain) the image is usually acceptable.
For lower light images I will usually bring out my Canon 5D MkIV DSLR as its low light performance is very impressive. Unfortunately, that was in my hotel room back in Shinjuku/Kabukicho. The image is very grey even when it is in colour due to the black and white clothes, the black painted step and the misty weather outside. The usually bright orange colour of the tower was muted to the point of being grey so I converted the whole image to black and white as there was no colour in it that made a difference to the moment captured.
Reflective Gallery
The next picture was taken as I walked around the galleries to check out the views out of the different sides of the observatory. There are areas where people can take a seat and relax with the view in the background, and I bet these get really busy at sunset, where sometimes you can get a glance of Mount Fuji overlooking the huge city beneath the tower.
This image was also shot handheld, I didn’t have my tripod with me on this day, and shows the lovely polished wooden floor and benches with the viewing windows providing the light into the scene. I liked how the lines of th efloor boards are leading the viewer into the vanishing point which is the corner around which the next gallery appears. The perspective of the lines and the windows all heading the same direction are pleasing to my eye also. This was shot at 1/125th sec ISO 3200 and f/8.0, as there were no moving subjects, after I’d waited a couple of minutes for the other guests to make their way out of the frame. Again I was getting some glances from the other visitors as I was leaning against a wall with the camera to my eye so that I could gather the image before the next group of tourists rounded the corner. I particularly like this photo as I know where it was made and what the view outside of the windows is, but to a viewer of this photo, it could be a ground floor window or even on another world. It reminds me a little of 2001: A Space Odyssey, in the scene from the waiting room at the Hilton Hotel whilst Dave is looking to catch a flight to the Moon. Looking at that scene now I note that the colours are reversed in terms of floor and windows but this is what I was reminded of at the time.
The choice to convert to a black and white image was made due to there being very little colour in the image. The wooden floor was a very dark brown and almost everything else colourless, barring the bright red fire extinguisher at the vanishing point of the image. When in its original colour space, as can be seen below, it looks very much like I have “colour popped” the image. I do not like colour popping, but most of all I do not like applying it to my images as it feels like a conscious choice to give the focus of an image to the one detail, it almost takes away the free choice of the viewer to have a look around the picture and investigate it.
Borderless Stairs
Another of my favourite pictures that I made in Tokyo is the following taken in teamLab:Borderless, an immersive exhibition where there is an absence of room lights and illumination comes from the projected patterns, images and moving pictures. This was from the stairs going into the first room, literally after going in through the entrance. It was very dark in this room, save for some lights in the handrail area that appeared to illuminate the stairs also.
As you can see in this image the stairs are illuminated and as I got to the bottom, I turned to see the geometry in them The handrail illumination hidden in the sunken part of the wall and the rest of the light was a blue colour but I think it works better as a black and white low key image. The steps and the lines of the handrail lead you into the image and the top left corner consists of a large black negative space which I feel balances out the busy right hand side. The steps appear to disappear to a mysterious place much as the Stairway to Heaven in Powell and Pressburger’s film A Matter Of Life And Death, or even Disney’s movie Soul. The top of the stairs is out of view, and the viewer, unless they’ve been there, is oblivious to the fact that the top is a simple doorway to the entrance hallway.
It was shot on the Leica Q3 at 1/125th sec, f/1.7 at ISO 4000. The wide aperture was selected automatically as I’d selected the shutter speed priority and it was such a low light environment that the lens was opened up to gather as much light as possible. The ISO of 4000 doesn’t seem to have an overly negative impact on the quality of the photo either. The shutter speed could have dropped to 1/60th but I was nervous of other guests barging in through the doors and ruining the image. I will often take several images at different shutter speeds whilst a scene is set, in case a constant stream of interlopers prevents me from capturing it again.
Lily
In a room on the walk around the immersive experience was a very sloped floor from high up to a lower doorway with a path of sorts through these glow in the dark or fluorescent discs on sticks, seemingly placed at random. Walking through them provided movement to them as they swayed back and forth after a hit from a leg or a small child’s head. The blacklight in the room along with projections made them appear as if they were lily pads floating atop a pool that we were waist deep in. On top of the projections that also made it look like thousands of fireflies were surrounding us was a soundtrack playing from all directions, music and organic sounds all designed to disorientate the visitor.
After making my way through the imaginary pond I got to the exit, turned around and saw a mirrored glass window that you couldn’t see from inside the room. Looking through here you could see the guests marvelling at the surroundings as they wandered around, mobile phone cameras held aloft to document some memories. Holding my camera lens hood against the glass I was able to hold the camera reasonably steady to make some long exposure images.
This photo was made using a 5 second shutter speed, an aperture of f/1.7 and ISO 640. The ISO was able to be lowered and thus reduce the digital noise, as I was able to increase the length of time the shutter stayed open. I experimented with shorter exposure times but found that I wanted to capture movement in here too. There were some people who stood still in the middle of the room to do a photo or a video , so I worked out that 5 seconds would capture a photo of a stationary person whilst turning the moving people into a ghostly like spectre in the image.
The photo also has a chunk of empty negative space at the top of it, I tried images where the whole frame was filled but it removed any idea that this was a pond with lily pads floating atop the imaginary water. I was pleased with this image in black and white as it is quite a low-key image, and the colour in the original photo was very distracting. The tops of the discs were showing green and blues as well as red spots so I found it to be more pleasing once the colour was removed.
Cyber Pond
Another photo I made whilst looking through this window has not made it into any of my zines or coffee table photo book but I really like it. It was made using all of the same settings as Lily above, except the ISO changed to 800. I noticed that there was some scope for using Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) and whilst there were some green lights being projected onto the disc like pads I spun the camera through a circular motion, about it’s centre. Using the same 5 seconds exposure time meant that the shutter button was pressed then almost instantly the body spun around on the axis of the centre of the lens. Some were successful and others not very successful at all. Some went off access creating an image that didn’t please aesthetically whilst others had a dull 360° turn, that felt like it was a bit too far. The one beneath was my favorite of the ICM images.
Looking more closely, you can see a single figure at the centre and the green trails created being created by spinning the camera in a clockwise direction. The photo, to my eyes, has the appearance of a composite image designed to act as an editorial image about cyber-security. There is also a hint of ripples after a splash in water, coming from the centre of the frame out to the edges. It appears that I managed to obtain a pretty centralised location for the spinning motion but there were a few more that didn’t have as neat an appearance.
Sky Rays
Returning to a black and white image, this shot was a slight crop from a wider picture that i felt needed tightening up to remove some distractions on the left edge. there are a few layers in this image with my focus being on the guy holding a DSLR camera in one hand and taking a picture using his DJI Osmo video camera. The photo would have been ideal without the people in the front but I waited for a while and they stayed there. That was when the guy videoed the convergence of the light rays being shone into the sky off the top of this huge tower overlooking the Shibuya Scramble crossing. I could wait no longer. The people along the glass wall are also interesting and facing away so producing less distraction especially as they are mostly silhouetted.
This image was shot at 1/60th sec, with an ISO of 2500 and an aperture of f/1.7. The light rays are blurred mostly because they were waving around but it also allowed me to catch the misty nature of the air on the top of this skyscraper.
Other than the views of the city around, it was difficult to capture any good photos off the top of this building. It was impossible to capture a good frame of the Shibuya Scramble crossing from up here too, for that I had to go downstairs and look through the window.
Escalator Patience
I’ve mentioned it before in a blog post buy famous golfer Gary Player was once quoted as saying “the more I practice, the luckier I get”. When I show this image to people they tell me how lucky I was to catch the user of the escalator at just the right time. I’m not angry when they say this but I do like to point out that I was stood at this spot for well over 30 minutes taking pictures of people as they rode the moving stairways. I shot photos on my Leica M6 with Ilford HP5 Plus on ISO400 and also many with my Leica Q3.
I was on my way to Ueno Park to capture some images of the concrete buildings that make up the museums and other amenities in the area when I saw two of these circular opportunities. The first was made up of two rings, one further away but looking concentric with the nearest but that had lockers behind and felt a little more cluttered. I found this one on the way out of the station and stood hopefully with my two cameras. I have about five frames on HP5 and about four on the digital. This particular image was shot 1/500th sec at f/8.0 and ISO 25000. There is a little noise in the image but the graininess of it suits the black and white conversion. The colours in the image pull the eye away from the central figure if left, the left pointing arrow is red on a bright yellow background so very distracting.
This style of street photography is referred to as “Fishing” according to Matt Stuart and refers to standing in one spot with the frame made up and ready, just waiting for an unsuspecting fish to come into the frame and pose exactly where they are needed. It takes a lot of patience to do this, and an ability to ignore the strange glances and stares from other people using the station but I’ve got a tough outer skin and I’ve got used to it now. The fish in this picture was a single traveller on the upwards escalator, sometimes there were two close together or an overlap of up and down people. This is the shot I was aiming for.
Platform People
In this, the fourth train based image, I have intentionally slowed down the shutter to obtain information about the location of the person shooting the picture. I was on a metro train heading out to Minami-Sakurai for a tour around the Underground Discharge Channels when I decided to capture the view out of the train window. I even captured a video of the light of the train windows moving around on the floor to capture the movement and the poles and cables flying past the window.
This image was made between Tokyo and Omiya of a passenger awaiting a train to board. I had lowered shutter speed to 1/30th sec and the ISO 100 with an aperture of f/8.0 meant that the focus point would be in the correct area of the platform (zone focussing) whilst the speed had a dynamic feel to it. The businessman on the platform was stood in line and next to him were two other passengers also queueing, one with a face mask on. The enlarged/widened face of this salaryman makes it almost appear that there are three faces on his shoulders which is why this photo interested me. Is this person on his way to work, in the early afternoon, or has he been sacked and on his way home, or is he also a tourist on his way to the same place I am? All these questions come to mind and that mystery is one of the many reasons I like capturing candid shots of people going about their daily business.
the issue with the photo that some people have mentioned they don’t like, is the black lines caused by the edges of the windows in the door. I could remove them by cropping and straighten the image so that the black line at the foot of the wall behind the characters is level but I feel it loses some of its dynamism.
Underground Temple
Once at the Tokyo Outer Area Metropolitan Underground Drainage Channels facility I was taken underground with another 15 or so guests for a look around a huge underground pressurisation tank used to limit the effects of floods in the Tokyo area. These 25 metre concrete pillars don’t just hold up the roof of this tank, but also hold it down so it doesnt blow off when it fills with up to 350,000 tonnes of flood waters. This image was tricky owing to the sheer scale of the room we were stood in but also the the lighting wasn’t great. Along with the lighting not being fantastic, the air was humid and createed a hazy appearance to the naked eye.
The Leica Q3 was set at 1/125th sec, f/8.0 and an ISO at a staggering 64,000. The resulting image was a little too noisy so I cleaned it up somewhat using the denoise tool in Lightroom Classic. I was pleased with capturing the tour guid stood as sentry ensuring people do not go too far into the tank, as it showed the scale of her against the 200 tonne concrete pillar.
As you can see on the floor of the tank, there were also many captive puddles, where the water hadn’t drained away fully, and these made for some interesting images using reflections. There were many images I made with no humans in, and some with too many humans in. The photos without people showed no scale so it could be a small model, or even something smaller. The photos with too many people, did not work as they were all doing different things in different places, and some were cut off by the pillars etc. The image above shows the room disappearing 177 metres into the distance but it has a feeling of reverence, probably the reason it is referred to as the Underground Temple. I’m not spiritual or religious but I know that this is an engineering task that deserves to be more widely known than it is.
Shinjuku Crossing
One evening as I was walking back from the Shinjuku East Exit towards my hotel on the opposite side of Kabukicho I was headed to the bright lights of Godzilla Road, with the Gracery Hotels, multiple blue lit floors reaching up to the sky. I had stopped to take photos of people on the streets and I notice a young woman walking down the hill towards me, being chased by the guys who hassle young women into coming to work at their bars and clubs etc. It seemed all of the “recruiters” were bee-like drones all buzzing around the queen but she confidently strolled past them all on her way to wherever she was headed. As she walked past me to wait for the green man on the crossing I noticed she was all alone now and stood in front of a lit up scene. I made a few photographs, with her in focus, the background in focus using the f/1.7 aperture. If I had used a narrower aperture of f/8.0, there would have been more depth of field but the trade off in higher ISO or slower shutter speed was not worth it. This images was shot at 1/250th sec, f/1.7 and ISO 400. With hindsight a higher ISO would have been possible, maybe another three stops up at 3200 and that would have allowed me to open the aperture up to f/4.0 at least.
I like this image as it shows a young, elegantly dressed, confident woman making her way through a notoriously dodgy part of the city. The blue lights on the floors of the hotel are almost like DNA or a barcode, similarly to the crossign in front of the subject. This might represent commodification of women in the Japanese society, especially in the Kabukicho area. At the time I wasn’t thinking about wha tit represented, but only how to make a good image. I could still clean it up by removing the heads from the bottom right hand corner but I am pleased with the leading lines of the crossing taking us across the road to the Don Quijote store on the right side of the road.
Shinkansen Sleekness
1/200th sec f/8.0 at ISO3200 were the settings for this image captured at Kyoto station after a 3 hour journey on the bullet train. I had got off the train that took me to the old capital and wanted to take a wider angle shot of the aerodynamic front end of this engineering marvel. The train started firing up to move off from the platform and I knew I had to be quick, I upped the shutter speed to super fast to make it look as though the train were static. There was a passenger waiting on the platform for the next train to arrive at this platform and she wa wearing pale and muted colours that all matched up with the colour of the train, the steelwork of the station, the floor, and the building seen though the opening of the platform. I moved into a position that this woman appeared on the lower right crossing point of the rule of thirds to try and fit with the composition rules.
My love for capturing the Japanese text on signs and posters is practically missing from this image. It does appear on the sign further down the platform and some writing on the small signs of the gates that open when you climb aboard. THere is also an electronic board that shows both English and Japanese text but due to the fast shutter speed and this could have been avoided if I’d used a slower speed, something below 1/125th sec should allow the LEDs to all be on in the same photograph.
Kyoto Colour & Concrete
Staying with a colour photograph for a moment, although you could argue it is barely colour. This photo was made at the Kyoto International Conference Centre and was number one on my hitlist of locations to visit when in Kyoto. It was very wet on this day and you can see the concrete on the exposed areas looking damper than the rest. I’m a lover of Brutalist architecture and this collection was built mostly between 1959 and 1966 by designer Sachio Otani. The angles, lines, geometry, patterns, textures, and differences in colours all add up. to be a special treat for me.
I tried getting into the building to make some images inside, but there was a conference on and I had no ticket, and I was a weirdo foreigner taking photos of concrete. I settled for a walk around the outside and found some great features, but for me, this image is my defining image of what I saw here.
It was shot on the Leica Q3 at 1/250th sec, f/1.8 and ISO 64. For some reason I must have moved the aperture ring from its usual position on f/8.0 where it’s sweet spot is in terms of across the frame focus and sharpness. I do not think it detracts too much from the quality of the photograph though and is still my one of my favourites from Kyoto. If I were to visit again, I would have the aperture a little narrower and the ISO set about 400. The shutter speed is a little fast for the conditions also, nothing was moving apart from the raindrops.
Misty Hills & Taxi
Still at the Kyoto ICC in the rain and I was undercover making pictures of a concrete gutter and drain, when I turned around to see this taxi about to leave the car park. The driver had opened the rear door for the passenger and then began to turn to leave the area. The taxis in Japan are another fascination for my photography. The colours, symbols, signs and even the neatness of the drivers all tell the story of an area, this one had yellow headlights which looked a little european and this image shows a three quarter view of the vehicle. A side or front aspect would have meant the loss of the details, so I waited for it to turn towards me before pressing the shutter release.
The photo was made using my iPhone 16 Pro with the auto settings at 1/100th sec, f/2.8 and ISO 100. The car was moving slowly as it was just beginning to move, and the mist on the hills reminds me of all typical scenery in Japanese images, TV or movies and the concrete building with the pointy roof was altogether in one place for this image. This being an image from my smartphone is not a surprise, the focal length on my Q3 mirrorless camera is fixed at 28mm but the iPhone has 0.5x, 1x, 2x, and 5x modes which allow me to capture photos not possible with the Q3. In the past I would have been carrying my Canon 5D all day and this would have been easily doable with the 24-105mm lens that would no doubt have been mounted on the front. As I have mentioned earlier though, I use the Canon 5D for mainly low light conditions now, or using the 16-35mm and 24mm tilt-shift for wider and more more specialised architectural shots.
Kyoto Krossing
This photo shows some of the facets that make up the reason I travelled to Japan to capture images. The rain, the reflections, the umbrellas, the lights and the cool text characters on signs. I travelled in June specifically for the rainy conditions and I had about two days altogether when it rained consistently, this evening in Kyoto was one of them.
The Q3 was set at 1/60th sec, f/8.0 and ISO 12500 whilst I headed back towards my hotel from the station. This scene is below the Nidec Kyoto Tower and the rain allowed me to catch the reflections off the road and the green lights on the umbrellas. It was pouring with rain and keeping the front element of the lens dry is a challenge, even with its small hood. I have to hold it facing downwards and raise it to my eye at the precise moment I want to press the shutter. I was using zone focussing so I do not have to wate any time on choosing a focus point and composing afterwards. Its all about seeing the image, raising the camera, checking the frame and then pressing the button. It is a slow exposure at 1/60th but this was required as it was a failry narrow aperture. The auto ISO ramped up to counter the issues but the noise in the image remains pretty well under control.
Kyoto Karaoke
In the previous text about the rainy crossing and Shinkansen, I mentioned again my love of informing the location by including the text on signs, this one is no different. I stood near the opening of a subway into the Kyoto subway system and st my focus point on people walking past the sign in a window for Big Echo Karaoke. It was pouring with rain still and people were using umbrellas whilst going about their night-time business.
The shot above was with the settings the same as the crossing image. 1/60th sec, f/8.0 and ISO 12500. My aim was to get silhouetted figures in front of the Kanji and Hiragana characters on the signs telling passers by that this is the Kyoto Station Store. Karaoke is huge in Japan and the number of large buildings in the cities devoted to this past-time is staggering. I kept this image in colour as I liked the red, white and blue that was in the solour space of the photo. To desaturate it meant that it all looked like one layer. In this photo with the colour though you can see the wall, then the pedestrian and beyond that the shop window. It’s another photograph that is unmistakably Japan.
Light Rain
After standing around this area for around twenty minutes I moved on, but only about thirty yards around the corner, where a bar and restaurant had a queue developing outside on the pavement. I stepped behind one of the patrons with a transparent umbrella and took around four photos of different compositions and found this one to be the most pleasing.
This screams ” a wet evening in Japan” to me and the image is made, in my opinion , by the orange light coming through the umbrella from the doorway in the background. There are some signs illuminated too for a restaurant and although we see no complete people, the vague silhouette is visible through the plastic dome. At 1/500th sec, f/8.0 and ISO 50000 this is a struggle of a shot. I had increased the speed of the shutter as people were moving around at this doorway and I wanted to freeze the image. I also have to contend with the super high ISO which is unusually ok for this camera. As a standalone image it is a great reminder of this walk around the city at night. Joined with other rainy day images it brings home the picture of a wet few days in a city that looks better in the soaking conditions.
Kawaguchi Mirror
This image was shot at 1/500th sec at f/8.0 and an ISO of 800 using the Q3. It shows a convex mirror and a reflection of the road bridge near a hotel, which can be seen in the rear of the image. The large red metal structure is very photogenic and I made a few images of it from different angles, but I saw this reflection in a mirror and knew I had to capture it.
This mirror image has given me an idea for a project of capturing round mirrors for my 5th year project, it’s on my short list. I love this photo as it hints at the location, the mist, trees and background all help me remember exactly where it was made. I would have preferred to take an image without the building and green foliage appearing behind it but this wouldn’t have given me a usable picture. The bridge would have been out of the reflection.
Fashionista
This iumage beneath is a good example of a street photo that only happens when you have the camera set up and in your hand ready to go. As I strolled down the street in Osaka on the way to Nishiki Market I spotted this lady first, dressed in a noticeable outfit. The reds and yellows were what stood out and only when I looked at the image at home I could see that her necklace, socks, shirt and even shopping bag were “Commes Des Garcons” , a Japanese fashion label. The young boy with her is in similar colours and typical of the type of English T-shirts a word in the slogan (together) is spelt incorrectly.
This was shot at 1/250th sec, f/7.1 and ISO of 1250. It was a sweltering day but under the walkway in front of the shops the light was lost somewhat. My zone focusing was a bit too distant too, so the text on the poster behind is crisp whilst the two figures are a little softer.
Retro Metro
On my way to the Expo at Osaka I was travelling on a metro train when I was looking around at the features. The seats all looked very retro and the hand holding rings also appeared to be of an old type. There was no digital signage on the train, the walls looked like wood paneling and the switches were very old school. The timing of capturing the houses, which also look old, was fortuitous and I made a few photos to capture different backgrounds through the windows. This shot was captured at 1/250th sec, f/8.0 and ISO 500. The green colour of the seats is what captures my eye and the way you can see where people have sat, stroking the material into facing one direction. There are no people in the photo except for a reflection of a passenger in the woodwork near the door.
Family Taxi
This picture shows a couple of iconic images that appear in Japan and that travellers or locals will be aware of. The Yellow Taxi featuring the red light in the windscreen and the official licensed roof mounted signs. The car waits outside a Family Mart convenience store (konbini) in the city of Osaka after dark. The lights reflecting off the taxi bonnet and windscreen along with other surfaces are what makes this photograph for me, as well as the unmistakable country of origin.
The settings on the camera were 1/250th sec at f/8.0 and 16000 ISO, it was very dark, being after 10pm but the lights help out a great deal. The face of the driver is obscured by shadows and there are no other recognisable people in the shot.
Osaka Tunnel
My favourite shot from the whole two weeks shooting is this image of a maroon taxi viewed in a tunnel under a building through a sliding door. As I clicked the shutter at 1/250th sec on ISO 8000 and f/8.0 with the Leica Q3 fixed Summilux 28mm f/1.7 lens, I knew that I had caught a special (in my opinion) photograph. Photos with a frame inside the frame are a lovely thing when they happen and the doorway provides just this effect. The lines in the shot all follow a path to a vanishing point far outside the left side of the frame and the grid on the floor, along with the light blue/green lines and even the line of lights in the roof all serve to show you the direction the car will be moving in.
Similar to the taxi parked outside the shop above, this photo tells me that this is a Japanese taxi and allows me to remember this as the location immediately. The little arches in the building behind the taxi are also a nice feature with the light coming in through there also. The reflections of the lights on the chrome and paint of the car also give it a depth that I hadn’t planned when I first saw the shot.
I took a few photos of this particular car through other doorways too as we both moved slowly down the tunnel at Umeda Metro station, but this was the first. The others were more square on to the doors and the car beyond so it seemed to lose the dimensionality of the leading lines. The grubby nature of the wall and door is recognisable also as part of the city of Osaka, which contradicts many peoples’ views about the cleanliness of the Japanese environment, which I didn’t always find to be as pristine as many people would have you believe. It is not an issue that the walls are a bit dirty, Birmingham and London in the UK have some downright filthy locations so this is not a condemnation. I do think that it reflects the true nature of the city though.
Rest Of The Images
These are a small selection from my favourite photos from the two week journey through the three cities of Osaka, Tokyo and Kyoto. They do not represent all of my favourites either and the rest of the selection can be found in my latest zine, Nihon Echoes available on etsy and eBay.
I also produced a one-off coffee table photo book of the journey titled Echoes Of Three Cities but this is not for sale as it cost a good deal of cash to get made by Saal Digital, even with a killer discount code.
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