Tokyo Desu
by Gerri McLaughlin
After seven years of coming and going and deepening my connection to Tokyo I finally achieved my dream of moving here to live, albeit in the middle of a global pandemic! My journey into Street Photography started here and so it continues only now as a resident. This series reflects how I see Tokyo and it's peoples before and now during the time of Covid 19...
May We All Return To Abnormal Soon!
It's been a year since we first heard of Covid and I was in Tokyo when it started, I returned to Europe right at the beginning of it and have been in lockdown of one form or another since then. I see there is a noticeable difference in atmosphere on the streets since I moved. Certainly fewer people and an unspoken awareness of the virus permeates the air. Masks, hand sanitisers, paranoia & temperature tests are de rigeur almost everywhere but I also see that people are tired, Covid fatigue is also observable, less precaution, less social distancing and a sad longing to be back where we were with just our everyday challenges to contend with.
So at the moment I am shooting less but I am fortunate that I had taken so many photos in Tokyo over the years, the upside of the pandemic( I have to find an upside! ) is getting time to trawl the archive and find some hidden gems, shoot first worry about editing later I say ….
In Tokyo I shoot from the point of view of an outsider and although I live here now and as yet am not part of my local community, big city life doesn't always lend itself to that! That's been a developing theme in my photography being on the outside looking in as I left "home" in 1989. I've since come to believe that "home" is not a place as such for me but more of a feeling inside where I am at peace with me rather than the rest of the world.
I hope that these different series of shots will give the viewer a small and some intimate look at the city and the people as I see them, it's easy to feel comfortable in Tokyo, it's a relaxed place considering its size and population, my aim is as ever to capture the beautiful ordinary of people doing people things…
"Children pick flowers, Let them. Though having no further use for them in hand they have no further use for them but leave them crumpled at the curb's edge." William Carlos Williams.
Children still play and indeed ice cream will be eaten…
Ichikawa
Tokyo
Chiba
children
"Street Photography for me is a natural expression of my love of people and their cities, tiny fragments of their life stories captured in one fleeting instant, the vibrance and emotion of the street, it lifts me up and drags me down and shakes my emotions all around, no other type of photography holds my attention like street."
