Street Photography in Tokyo Pt. 2

Waiting for the train on a rainy platform.

I'm trying to make street photography around Tokyo a regular occurrence for me. When I first moved here it was one of my aspirations I was working towards, and over time I was able to more confidently approach it, particularly trying to capture people in their daily lives. I came to learn I value getting natural shots of people, ideally with some emotion driving it, but without disturbing the scene, or at least minimizing my presence in it.

I think that quite often that can be a real challenge, and personal obstacle, for a lot of people. It can be a daunting task as you have to get into the action, but be subtle enough that people either trust you, or don’t get a vibe that will ultimately completely ruin the photograph. I want their expressions to be natural and to tell a story, along side that I also don’t want to be the person who is driving that expression.

As a result I often work with focal lenses that push me to be in the scene. I don’t particularly enjoy shooting at longer focal lengths most of the time, but from an artistic perspective, and as a stylistic one, it can also be wonderful at times too. I suppose in the end I’m open to both but tend to gravitate towards shorter focal lengths.

All that being said, back in my first year or two here I was on a real streak in coming to grips with showing more confidence and getting out of my comfort zone in order to photograph people on the street. I felt as though I was making some real progress and looking back on my previous work I can confidently say that was the case. That confidence waned a bit over time, occasionally growing, but also faltering due to the movements of life and how they can inspire, or demotivate us.

Eventually the pandemic kind of brought it all crashing down for me. As with a lot of people around the world, our daily lives turned into ones we never imagined, and we were left with a lot of hesitation and uncertainty about how to respond, how to proceed, and what the coming years would ultimately look like. At that time I also became a father, and the responsibilities and combined with the gravity of the situation regrettably had a pretty big impact on my confidence and identity as a photographer.

I noticed myself identifying as one less and less, which in turn led to a decrease in how often I would have my camera with me, let alone use it. As you can imagine that kind of situation doesn’t lend itself to motivation, confidence, or artistic intent.

At the start of this year, not in line with New Year’s Resolutions, or anything, I started moving towards making a new identity. I came to terms with how much pleasure and happiness chasing my photographic pursuits brought into all aspects of my life in the past. I wanted to forge a new identity and path forward, one that payed homeage to the past but wasn’t tied down to it either.

I was not much of a writer, nor was I a videographer. I loved my identity as a photographer. Going forward though. I will work on my identity as all three of those and aim to create work that benefits those around me, as well as my own personal aspirations.