RECENT PROJECT - SCENES FROM JAPAN 2010 - 2011

#1 Senri Selcy ( a suburban shopping mall in Osaka) & Roppongi Hills, June 2010

In June 2010, during my stay in Japan, I went to Tokyo and Senri New Town (a suburban city in Osaka prefecture where I grew up), and shot not only subway stations, but also various other locales. The scenes shown here are some of the photos I took at Roppongi Hills - a New Urban Centre located in Roppongi, Tokyo, as well as at Senri Selcy - a suburban shopping mall located in Senri New Town, Osaka. Although I took all those pictures quite spontaneously, they came out as rather interesting "frozen" moments of time showing crowds along with urban high-tech architecture. Each person in the photographs seems to convey his or her own personal life story even though they appear frozen in their action.

 

#2 Masked Japan - Tokyo, Osaka & Kyoto (within 2 weeks after the disaster), March 2011

In March 11th 2011, a cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami occurred on the northern coast of Japan killing about 20,000 people, and wrecking Fukushima nuclear power plants causing serious radioactive leaks throughout northeastern Japan and also Tokyo. Around that time, I happened to be visiting my mother in Osaka, Japan - which was unaffected since it is located some 600 km west of the disaster area. There I witnessed the disaster on TV that same day.

Originally, I had planned to take pictures of Kyoto as well as Osaka during this visit. Kyoto was just an hour away from Osaka by train. So, within the week, I took train and walked around tourist spots in Kyoto such as famous temples & shrines and photographed people there. Early spring in Kyoto was so peacefully beautiful and totally unaffected by the disaster right happening in the northern Japan. I also went to photograph the UFJ (The Universal Studios Japan) amusement park in Osaka bay area. That was just five days after the disaster but the place was filled with fun-loving couples and families. The streets in mid-town Osaka City were packed with numerous gourmet eateries and lively young people. Looking at those happy, care-free faces of tourists as well as residents who continued with their normal lives, I felt like I was living in a different dimension away from the harsh reality happening in the northern Japan.

Two weeks later I got an opportunity to travel east to Tokyo for a few days where I felt that the capital city looked dark and many people seemed under great stress as they moved about in train stations and streets beneath traffic lights and advertising boards that had been switched off due to the power shortage. Small tremors still shock the city almost daily. In Japan, many people wear surgical masks in public and this is not an unusual sight as people normally wear them to protect others from their colds or sickness. However during my visit in Tokyo,I felt like those people were trying to hide their anxiety and depression under their masks.

#3 - OSAKA BACKSTREET, March 2011

This series is located in the heart of Osaka city. The main streets are always filled with a trendy young crowd sightseeing and shopping in such spots as Dotonbori and America Mura (America Village). But step into the backstreets, you feel as if you have gone back to a previous era. Backstreets and underground areas of Osaka definitely have a nostalgic, forbidden, and somewhat depressing atmosphere that distinguishes this city from others,