Recollections: from New York to Tokyo 

2008 - 2010

In the summer of 2007, I resumed shooting at NYC subway stations. Then, two years later, I had the opportunity to shoot the Tokyo subway stations. My shooting approach in both cities was almost the same: casual and spontaneous. Most of my shots were taken from behind passengers, using a 28mm wide-angle lens with a fixed aperture, and without the use of a flash or tripod.
 
Unlike pre-war-designed, rat-infested New York subway stations, subway architecture in Tokyo is relatively new, clean, and well-maintained, and filled with generally well-mannered passengers. Although the atmosphere of these two cities is so different, I found an undeniable similarity in the images when I developed the exposed negatives. Just like my images taken in NYC subways, illuminated by artificial lighting, Tokyo subway passengers in the photos look meditative, quiet, and somehow detached from reality in these supposedly noisy public places. The surreal impression I discovered in NYC subways also definitely existed in the modernized Tokyo subways.
 
In addition, I found that Tokyo passengers, such as groups of men in dark business suits and especially schoolgirls wearing monotone school uniforms, appear quite fascinating. Those uniformed creatures, both the men and the girls that I shot from every angle, blend so well into the Tokyo subway architecture, they seem a natural fixture of the subterranean environment.