
Snapshots of Tokyo’s vivid street life - kikitee
https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/photography-2/tokyo-street-photographer-mikiko-hara/
======
rococode
Somewhat related:

One of my favorite Youtube channels is Rambalac. It's just videos of walking
through various places in Japan, from crowded streets to peaceful natural
areas. No voiceover or explanations - almost every video is as if a video
camera were moving around on its own and recording everything it saw
(occasionally he interacts with things). Super relaxing to have on in the
background, and really cool to watch to get a glimpse of everyday life there.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/Rambalac](https://www.youtube.com/user/Rambalac)

Here's some of the videos, there's a huge variety:

Shibuya at night:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qGiXY1SB68](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qGiXY1SB68)

Shinjuku evening walk:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHr4qSQ-5XU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHr4qSQ-5XU)

Kyoto's Kiyomizudera in the morning:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAeN7TdGq4o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAeN7TdGq4o)

Cat island (Tashirojima):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnfzALzLNgY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnfzALzLNgY)

Playing with deer at Nara:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu4GJwCpX2w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu4GJwCpX2w)

Shibuya Halloween:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkm522cTpzE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkm522cTpzE)

~~~
intruder
I live in Tokyo and wish I could see it through the eyes of someone new here
again. I can see it in these videos, but when I walk through the city I'm too
used to it and my brain drowns out all of these things.

~~~
madcol
So a technique I've found useful to solve this issue aside from hanging out
with someone visiting is to dedicate 1 day to doing nothing but picking a
place that you're very familiar with and intentionally thinking about whether
you've been down that street or the next one, looking at places that I
wouldn't usually look like at the corners of the roof of buildings and then
just taking a moment to sit down and watch. This has worked for me in each of
the cities I've ever become too familiar with. You just tend to relax and get
to where you want to go, there's no nervous energy of not knowing where you
are or where you're going. Nowadays I tebd to just pop on my headphones and go
to where I need and go back home again and not take in a thing unless I have a
bit of a "reset"

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poglet
I really enjoy these photos of every day life in Tokyo. This type of
photography is something I struggle with, some of my attempts are here:
[http://poglet.net/](http://poglet.net/)

Hoping to get a change to go back one day.

~~~
maybeiambatman
Great photos!

~~~
tantuyu
Yeah, those are some great shots! Good eye for small details.

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tzfld
I can't see anything "vivid" on those pictures, honestly.

~~~
ggm
Me neither. They seemed badly framed and intruisive to many of the subjects.
Street photography demands some respect for privacy or at least more discreet
shooting

~~~
tokyodude
it's actually illegal in Japan to take pictures of people or their possessions
without permission. As a hobbist youre unlikely to get sued but it's one of
the reasons Google Maps had to add face blurring to Street View.

I found out when some guy had some bunnies out on a Sunday is Shinjuku. I went
to take pictures and was told angrily "NO PICTURES". I thought it was silly
that he'd say that when we was displaying his bunnies in public but I looked
up the law and found by Japanese law it's the illegal.

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grecht
Shooting without a viewfinder is a great way of taking photos. I used to use a
Minox 35 ML, the so called "spy camera":
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minox_35#/media/File:Minox35ml...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minox_35#/media/File:Minox35ml.jpg)

It's _very_ small, if not the smallest 35mm camera out there, which makes it
inconspicuous. Also it only has _zone-focusing_ , which means you have to
guess how far your subject is away from you. You'd only use the viewfinder for
framing and setting your exposure. However, since I also used the flash, the
exposure was fixed anyways. I usually put a roll of Portra 400 in, which I
pushed to 800. All that allowed me to stop down the lens quite a bit, so I
knew that everything in around 1.5 to 15 meters distance would be in focus
when I press the shutter. And I didn't worry about the framing, so I didn't
use the viewfinder.

This gave me an instantaneous access to situations and pictures that otherwise
would've been long gone after looking into the viewfinder and setting the
focus and exposure. I didn't worry much about how I held the camera and just
used my intuition. It really was a kind of liberating way to create images. So
yeah, the camera does matter! Although I think I only paid around $100 for
this one.

Those are a couple images I took in Paris that way:

* [https://gereonrecht.com/photographs/images/paris/paris-2.jpg](https://gereonrecht.com/photographs/images/paris/paris-2.jpg)

* [https://gereonrecht.com/photographs/images/paris/paris-3.jpg](https://gereonrecht.com/photographs/images/paris/paris-3.jpg)

* [https://gereonrecht.com/photographs/images/paris/paris-4.jpg](https://gereonrecht.com/photographs/images/paris/paris-4.jpg)

And one I took in Cologne:
[https://gereonrecht.com/photographs/images/cologne-man-
with-...](https://gereonrecht.com/photographs/images/cologne-man-with-dog.jpg)

~~~
rangibaby
Super cool results.

I enjoy zone focusing with an Industar 50-2 on my Spotmatic. Actually, that is
really the only way to enjoy using that lens because it has a fully manual,
one-ring iris – on an SLR lens! Stopped down to about f/8 it was pretty easy
to focus by the scale only. I did check my composition in the viewfinder, but
that was about it.

I'll try shooting without using the viewfinder at all next time. Shutter speed
is pretty easy to set and forget at daytime (Sunny 16 all day! ...literally)

~~~
grecht
Thank you!

I love Spotmatics! Sadly, the ones I inherited have light leaks.

If you're not going to use the viewfinder, it'd probably be a lot easier to
use something wider than 50mm. Besides the greater depth of field making zone-
focusing a lot easier, there's literally "more room" for error in your
(somewhat accidental) framing. Makes things easier. But I might be biased
here, as 35mm is my favorite focal length on any camera!

~~~
rangibaby
I prefer 35 for general shooting and 50-58 for taking pictures of people. I
have one 40mm and it is a nice compromise. I’m going to try some
viewfinderless shooting with my Spotmatic today - watch this space ;-)

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fiblye
Japan's got some pretty strong privacy laws. Strong to the point that it's not
permissible to take pictures of random people without their consent and
especially not OK to publish them publicly. None of these people look
particularly happy about some person taking pictures of them and it sure
doesn't seem like the were trying to be subtle. [1]

Furthermore, the faux olde timey look is far past its prime.

[1] [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2017/01/22/how-
tos/re...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2017/01/22/how-
tos/recording-public-places-japan-privacy-portrait-rights-come-play/)

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eecsninja
I love how life in Tokyo is so middle-class and family oriented compared to US
cities like SF and NYC.

~~~
paulsutter
Young children ride the subway alone to school, it’s a different world

~~~
woogiewonka
I see tiny kids walking down narrow (I would call dangerous due to traffic)
streets. See them crossing sidewalks. As a parent of a one year old I find
this scary and fascinating.

~~~
jpatokal
Traffic in residential Tokyo streets is also super slow, because drivers are
well aware that they're full of kids, grannies, cats, etc. And you're pretty
much automatically at fault if you hit a pedestrian.

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astrange
I appreciate that this is next to an article called "Privacy not included:
Holiday gift list for privacy and security".

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unicornporn
You can not have a thread about Tokyo snapshots without mentioning Daido
Moriyama[1][2]. :)

[1] [https://www.moriyamadaido.com/en/](https://www.moriyamadaido.com/en/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daid%C5%8D_Moriyama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daid%C5%8D_Moriyama)

~~~
dgarceran
Also the Provoke magazine and all the people that participated on it (like
Moriyama). Specially Takuma Nakahira.

~~~
philipps
I have been a fan of Sean Wood’s photography -
[https://50mm.jp](https://50mm.jp) (check out the older shots of nighttime
Tokyo).

~~~
motionid
Thank you :-)

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q-base
I really like the photo-documentary style. If anyone else has links to similar
style blogs/websites I would be very interested.

~~~
piffey
You'll want to look into any of the street documentary greats:

    
    
      * Garry Winogrand - NYC/LA/Texas, considered by many to be the best.
      * Lee Friedlander - From Aberdeen, WA, but really shot everywhere.
      * Anthony Hernandez - Modern, still working, has moved on to larger formats of environments.
      * Joel Meyerowitz - Modern, still working, has moved on to still lifes in Tuscany, but still teaches. Pioneered a lot of early color street work.
      * Robert Frank - Released The Americans the book that really started it all.
      * Henri Cartier-Bresson - Surrealist, dream-like work that's hard to imitate.
      * Walker Evans - Worked for the Farm Services Bureau and took lots of important documentary work early in America's history.
      * Elliott Erwitt - NYC with a touch of humor.
      * Helen Levitt - NYC bad neighborhoods and life.
      * Brassai - Parisian nightlife.
      * Richard Kalvar - Still working, great work of Italy in the 70s though.
      * Leitizia Battaglia - Italian mafia in Sicily.
      * Gianni Berengo Gardin - Considered the Italian Henri Cartier-Bresson.
      * Josef Koudelka - Czech, one of the greatest documentary workers to have ever lived. Still working today and making incredible work. His book Exiles is worth everyone owning.
      * William Eggleston - Basically responsible for color photography being accepted in fine art circles.
    
    

For some contemporaries still actively shooting street I'd check out:

    
    
      * Andre Wagner https://www.instagram.com/photodre/
      * Martin Parr https://www.instagram.com/martinparrstudio/
      * Daniel Arnold https://www.instagram.com/arnold_daniel/
      * Aaron Berger https://www.instagram.com/aaronbergerfoto/
      * Alex Webb https://www.instagram.com/webb_norriswebb/
      * Matt Stuart https://www.instagram.com/mattu1/
    
    

I have dozens and dozens more if you run through those and are still
interested. Street documentary work is my absolute favorite genre of
photography -- got hooked after my first darkroom class at 15 -- and try to
consume as much work as I can.

And no Internet post would be proper without some self promotion:
[https://www.instagram.com/piffeyfoto/](https://www.instagram.com/piffeyfoto/)

Edit: Ooof, formatting troubles. Never do lists on HN. Will clean up as soon
as I find a README.

Edit2: Can you really not do links in a formatted list?

Edit3: Probably easiest to link to here
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_street_photographers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_street_photographers))
for further reference too. I realized I left so many greats and their
contemporaries out just rattling off what was in my head. Nikos Economopolous,
Mary Ellen Mark, Danny Lyon, Levi Levinstein and Vivian Meier -- hope they'll
forgive me.

~~~
dgarceran
I run an Instagram where I posted many of these in the first list:
[https://www.instagram.com/neues.sehen/](https://www.instagram.com/neues.sehen/)

~~~
piffey
Awesome! I'll give you a follow. Always love seeing the greats come by in my
feed to remind me what I'm trying to achieve and strive for in my work.

------
tantuyu
Very nice shots!

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novia
Why did the author mostly creepshot women and children?

~~~
reustle
The author is the (female) photographer.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikiko_Hara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikiko_Hara)

Why does a candid photo of a woman or child have to be considered a creepshot
in your mind?

~~~
rangibaby
> Why does a candid photo of a woman or child have to be considered a
> creepshot in your mind?

As a guy the Japanese police will not be happy if you take candids of women or
kids

~~~
fwn
> As a guy the Japanese police will not be happy if you take candids of women
> or kids

That's true. There is a lot of fear, prejudice and prudery around gender and
age in the arts.

That doesn't mean we should stop thinking: It's crucial to assess for
ourselves whether a picture appears to us as offensive as we are confronted
with it.

Otherwise the criticism is just meaningless, recycled fear.

~~~
rangibaby
> That doesn't mean we should stop thinking: It's crucial to assess for
> ourselves whether a picture appears to us as offensive as we are confronted
> with it.

That's an interesting thought. Do you think photographers should have a moral
responsibility? A famous example I can think of is the controversy surrounding
"The vulture and the little girl" by Kevin Carter.

In terms of street photography, is it OK to "creep" or invade someone's
privacy, especially that of children? There is certainly a line between
telling a story and trashy exploitation, the question is where is it?

~~~
fwn
Good question and I don't think I have a great answer.

I personally believe that morality lies not in the document, but in the
context it is created or displayed in.

If, for example, the intention appears to me to be dishonest, exploitative or
outright cruel, I'd want to criticize the person responsible for putting this
document into this context. Whether this is done by creating the document or
changing its context doesn't appear as relevant to me.

Regarding the declarative line you mention, I think I'm pretty much a
pragmatist: I do not need to know where exactly the border is between India
and China to know that Delhi is in India.

...but I'm open to a more rule based approach as well. I just don't know one.

