Last Night in Tokyo

02 Apr 2016

Everything Will Be Ok - reassurance found on the floor of a donut shop.

Reassurance found on the floor of a donut shop.

Tonight is our last night in Tokyo. It's been an incredible trip, and i'm ready to get on the plane tomorrow morning and have a rest. I'm completely exhausted, and can't wait to relax for a few days and recuperate. On the flip side though, i'm a bit nervous about how much work we have to get done while there, and how little time we actually have available to us. We only have four weeks to complete countless assignments, and have a week long national public holiday right in the middle where productivity will be low.

Overwhelmed by Shibuya

02 Apr 2016

Photo from the second floor of Starbucks at the Shibuya Scramble

Drinking frappes while Shibuya scrambles below us.

Since we arrived in Tokyo, our days have been a whirlwind of museums, exhibitions, strange food, and commuting. We've crammed so much in that it feels like we've been here for months! We're starting to push out of our comfort zones, and find stranger and more beautiful things. This was the view from the packaging design exhibition we visited at the Tokyo Midtown Design Hub today. I'm really enjoying Tokyo, but can't wait to get to Bangkok and be able to start putting this photography series together. Today I took my 500th photo of a train station, and i'm getting eager to move on to the next stage in the process.

Exploring Further

29 Mar 2016

The view from the Tokyo Midtown Design Hub

Since we arrived in Tokyo, our days have been a whirlwind of museums, exhibitions, strange food, and commuting. We've crammed so much in that it feels like we've been here for months! We're starting to push out of our comfort zones, and find stranger and more beautiful things. This was the view from the packaging design exhibition we visited at the Tokyo Midtown Design Hub today. I'm really enjoying Tokyo, but can't wait to get to Bangkok and be able to start putting this photography series together. Today I took my 500th photo of a train station, and i'm getting eager to move on to the next stage in the process.

Fish Markets

27 Mar 2016

The greatest seafood i've ever eaten

The greatest seafood i’ve ever eaten.

We left our little hotel in Kamata this morning at 6am to catch 3 trains to the fish markets. The markets we visted are the biggest in Tokyo, and bring in a massive amount of people every day, from restuaranters looking for the freshest ingredients, tourists wanting the best sushi in Tokyo, and fishermen looking for work. It was amazing to see that even at 6am, the trains were running at full capacity. There seems to be no shortage of people to fill the carriages, no matter the direction they're headed, or the time of day. It's impressive, shocking and exhausting.

First Photos

25 Mar 2016

Test Shots in the Train Stations

We've been catching plenty of trainsave been exploring Tokyo which has given me plenty of oppurtunites to grab some test shots in some of the stations. I took a bunch of photos today, but aren't completely happy with the composition. I'd really like them to be more vibrant and have higher contrast. I've found it really comfortable taking photos in public. I guess the cultural divide means that i'm not really worrying about being judged by the people walking past, which makes it easier to get into awkward positions to get the photo just right.

I'm using the Nikon J5 mirrorless camera for the series. It's lightweight and really small, which makes it easy to carry around all day. It also takes 21-megapixel images in RAW, so I have heaps of flexibility with editing. A larger DSLR would allow me to get better image quality, but at the cost of probably not having the camera with me all of the time. Life in Japan is so fast paced that the perfect shot may only be there for a few seconds. Having a tiny camera that is around my neck all day meant that it was always within reach, and I barely ever missed a shot.

Arriving in Tokyo

21 Mar 2016

Dropping into the Adidas Originals Store on Cat Street

A bunch of my Media Design pals and I just landed in Tokyo. We're here for 13 days, before heading to Bangkok to spend four weeks in the Creative Media Design program at Stamford University. We headed straight to Cat Street to grab some coffee at The Roastery before exploring the vintage clothes shops and boutiques scattered around Harajuku. I spent way too much time in the Adidas Originals store. I regret nothing.

We also met our lecturer from Bangkok, Ajarn Wari. He took us through one of the assignments we are to complete while in Japan, a photographic series documenting things that are different to our culture back in Australia. After spending the day easily traversing Tokyo on public transport, with nothing more than some small pointers from Google Maps, I decided to spend some time studying signage in Japanese train stations. It had helped our group of 10 haphazard foreigners get around Tokyo pretty easily, presenting pretty complex information in a way that even we could understand.

Thus begins Tokyo Trains! I'll be taking some photos while i'm in Tokyo, and editing them as I go. This blog will serve to document my progress, and process, to deliver my final goal: an exhibition of my photography.