Tokyo playground
Share This was a fantastic commmision. How much more photogenic can you get than people doing acrobatics in the middle of the city? The principle behind Parkour (AKA freerunning) is pretty simple – the quickest, most natural way from moving from A to B. There are a couple of Parkour groups in Tokyo, but it’s [...]
Give it some stick
Share My first shot at photos of kendo, at the All Japan Kendo Championship last December. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan ran them in their January issue. I did Kendo for a few years when I first came to Japan, so this shoot brought back a few memories. As usual, the annual event was [...]
Pray for Japan
Share Each January crowds of people visit Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo for “hatsumode” - first prayers of the year. I took these portraits right in front of the main shrine. Some people bent their heads for seconds, some for minutes. I was hard not to imagine what people were praying for. Perhaps for a better year in [...]
Brrrrr
Share Here’s one way to cool down a little during the Tokyo summer . . . Back in 2008 I took part in a press tour to the Shiretoko peninsula way up on the northeast tip of Hokkaido. It was a fantastic trip, including a visit out to the ice-flows on an ice-breaker. Sadly, global [...]
Tsukiji portraits
Share Not only is Tsukiji fish market one of best places in Tokyo to visit, its one of the most photogenic too. A few years ago I did a small project photographing people who work in the market. I have around 100 impromptu portraits. Usually, I just approached people explained what I was doing, asked [...]
Sento painter
Share Sento bathhouse painter Toshimitsu Hayakawa was one of the most remarkable people I’ve photographed. Sadly, he passed away in 2009, only a couple of years after I took these photographs. One of the two last sento bathhouse painters in Tokyo, he was in his seventies and still working. He was a modest and kind [...]
Children’s Day in Ishinomaki
Share This is the last of the sets of photos I took up in tsumnami-devastated Ishinomaki over Golden Week. The morning of 5 May I drove from Sendai to Ishinomaki with rakugo artist Dianne Orrett and a couple of her Chindon’ya friends. We spent the day together as they performed at the Ishinomaki Mangattan and [...]
Wasabi wonder
Share Some photos from a little while ago that I’ve finally got round to posting (that happens a lot!) This is the owner of Marutou wasabi farm. If you are ever near the tip of the Izu peninsula, pay him a visit. He lives in one of the most beautiful Japanese villages I’ve ever seen. [...]
Tokyo Sinfonia in Tohoku
Share This is another story from Golden week. I travelled up to the disaster zone with the Tokyo Sinfonia who played several concerts in the refugee centers. This was another privileged experience. Two months after the quake, the authorities were reluctant to let anyone into the centers – least of all photographers. But it was [...]
Ishinomaki during Golden Week
Share These photos were taken just under two months after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. I was up in Ishinomaki during the Golden Week holidays to do a story for the magazine on a story for the magazine I edit. To be honest, I had my doubts about whether I should post these, or [...]
Chiba surfing
Share Surf’s up. Recently had chance to visit a surfing “Mecca” in Chiba with my brother-in-law. Beats Sunday morning pushing a trolley around Itoyokado. Time to invest in one of these? (Tokyo Photojournalist on Facebook)
One week later
Share Even at a time like this, people need music. Perhaps, at a time like this, they need it more than ever. On Tuesday I received this email from Robert Ryker, Music Director of the Tokyo Sinfonia. It was about a concert that some time ago we’d arranged I’d photograph – I was surprised to [...]
Tokyo marathon 2011
Share I took about two hundred portraits of runners at the Tokyo Marathon last Sunday, 100 at the start and 100 at the finish – all with my trusty nifty-fifty. I had a press pass courtesy of EURObiZ Japan. They’ll be a photo story in the magazine soon. I wanted to show the excitement of [...]
Sado jizo shrine
Share These photos are from a trip to the island of Sado in 2009, when I spent a couple of days driving around looking for places and people to feature in the travel story I was writing. I found this shrine a short drive up into the hills. It is named “Nashinoki Jizo” after the [...]
