No Fear in Kabuki-cho — A Shinjuku Evening
Shinjuku Kabukicho Street Photography
“I know some people will talk about purity and that kind of stuff, but I'm not really interested in that.”
A quote, rough as it is, taken from my field notes in Shinjuku's Kabuki-cho. The feeling I had that evening and the sentiment I was going for is the moment we're all trying to capture is so much more precious than any set of rules or gear that possess us. Being caught up in that world is a step away from that moment.
Shinjuku: the city that can't be escaped
The summer heat is locked in. There is no escaping it. There is no escaping Shinjuku.
Over the last decade it's become something entirely new. An explosion of hotels and tourists led to an explosion of restaurants in an already saturated city centre. Most nights there are more people than air. It can be challenging to practice street photography in certain areas of Shinjuku.
With all those people comes money. And very close to money, often, is poverty. That's increasingly become an issue here. There are many homeless youths on the streets. With large hotels right in the entertainment district, there's no mask for these youths to wear. They're right out in the open.
It's a fascinating thing to see culture, poverty, and tourism intermingle.
Out for beauty
My shooting day began late in the afternoon, with the sun falling. I hoped for a reprieve from the heat; there was none. I kept shooting happily as the setting sun cut streaks of light through the narrow paths between the buildings. I set my sights on people who looked fascinating and interesting. It didn't matter to me whether they were a wealthy tourist, a local businessperson, or one of the unfortunate homeless youths newly accustomed to these streets.
It was hot, and I was out for beauty. I refuse to see the disparity in the poverty, and at the same time I refuse to see the ego or pride in the tourist. I looked for what I found to be an honest moment: a beautiful soul walking through the spectacular light show put on by the host of Kabuki-chō and our partner, the sun.
I moved back and forth, up and down, looking for silhouettes, looking for light glancing off people's faces. Whenever possible, I try to use the ample signage as a secondary or tertiary layer in the image. Many signs are LED-based now and seem to flicker, so sometimes you get part of a word — half a word — which changes its meaning. That's fascinating to me.
Shinjuku Street Photography
For many years Shinjuku, specifically Kabukicho, was a no go for street photography. I had been there, done that, and moved on. Honestly I had forgotten all about it. It is big station, tons of people, but fragmented over a large area. Rather than each piece of Shinjuku, being unique they kind of always felt the same.
With each chance encounter over the last two years I noticed a very odd pattern emerge. The two distinct areas of touristy economy engine and red light district always had a zone of transition. A final block where the tourism kind of faded away and that sketchy underworld started to reveal itself. That is no more.
A handful of large hotels and entertainment complexes have landed smack dab in the middle of the red light district. We were talking about Disneyland in the middle of Kabukicho. It wasn't uncommon to see a homeless person, a street worker, and a family of four all in the same frame.
This is fascinating and something I think needs to be well documented. Not in the sensational sense, but with journalistic integrity.
The zone
I did my best to make as many images as I could in the short time I had. The next week I'd be on tour and unable to practice any street photography at all. Knowing that, it was easy to fall into the zone: not to talk, not to think, just to act.
For me this is the best kind of street photography. The best moment, the best experience of it. I know some people will talk about purity and that kind of thing; I'm not really interested in that. Just being able to step into a moment, record it, and step out — and directly step into another. That's as good as it gets. That's your heart, right there. That's everything for me. That's all of it.
Fear, gone
Walking through those streets, the heat faded and exhaustion faded and, honestly, time seemed to slip away. But most importantly, fear was nil. It was gone. Evaporated.
Fear is something I often feel, and sometimes it gets the best of me. On this day, it simply didn't exist.
People, light, and a brief moment of time.
A word about the glass
I shot most of this evening on a Nikkor Z 40mm ƒ2 — a modern lens, and worth saying plainly. I prefer the look and feel of vintage glass, but I hold no contempt for modern lenses. They have their place, which in my circumstances is mostly professional work. I was heading out on tour the next week and carrying the professional Z-mount kit; there was vintage glass in the bag too, but this was the last chance at the street for a while, and the 40 was what I chose to work with.
That's the whole confession. The lens didn't make the evening. The light did.
Working a district like Kabuki-chō without fear — the positioning, the light, the ethics of it — is what the masterclass works through one-on-one. → tokyoforgeries.com/masterclass
