Life in Japan – Tokyo Night in Black & White

By May 25, 2009 Black & White, Japan 2 Comments

Living alone in Tokyo can get kind of boring late at night, especially after you have been there a while. I used to walk around at 2am and look for interesting shots to convert into black and white photos. Not all of these shots were taken late at night, a lot were also taken along my trips home from the office, or in between izakayas. Click the link for more photos!

A shot looking down at Tocho, the capital building in Shinjuku.


One of the views from my office window in Shinjuku.


Another view from my office window, this one is facing towards Shinjuku Eki (Station).


An overpass in between skyscrapers.


Your typical restaurant located under the train tracks where pedestrians can travel through.


An illuminated sign in the subway underpass lets people know what restaurants are located in the building above the exit. This one is for Shinjuku Sky Building.


I lived rather close to Tokyo Tower, and I must have taken over a hundred shots of it during my stay. I could never resist taking a photo of it as I passed by, no matter how many I had taken before.

Tokyo Tower reflects on the polished hood of a Mazda parked across the street.


It was early on I learned about shooting lights in parks at night. This park was right at the base of Tokyo Tower.


In the same park there was a stream that ran through the path. These rocks are all cemented in, but the water still flows through.


Your typical shingled wall for a shrine.


Tokyo Tower does shut off late at night. But before that you can see it shining brightly for quite some distance.


A smaller building in the same Temple.


At first glance this can seem rather creepy to stumble upon at night. But these baby statues are located in a Buddhist Temple and are called “Jinzo”.  They commemorate a miscarriage or loss of a child. Jizo is defined as an enlightened and revered being. He is seen as “a guardian of children, particularly those who died before their parents”.


On a lighter note, here is the median outside my old flat. At night its rather quiet. But in the day time a six lane road in Tokyo gets rather noisy.


There was a gate blocking the roof access to my building. But on some nights, when the courage was high, you could swing around the outside of it and get up to the top. This shot I don’t think I took my tripod with me. I might have just set the camera on the edge and used that to try to stabilize the shot. Still a bit blurry.


Here is another, just landscape this time.

Some abstract lighting down on the streets.


And the ever impressive double decker floating freeways that cut through all of Tokyo.

You can see what I mean. To bad most of these were still usually bumper to bumper during the day.


Another highlight of Tokyo are all the little suspension bridges. They looked great, and they were well light in the night.


For some reason this Altezza impressed me enough to take a shot of it. I think its because it was owned by the Nigerian Bouncer in Roppongi who which I was friends with. Heh, I couldn’t believe he could afford this car, let alone in Tokyo where its so expensive to park it. He must have been doing something other than throwing drunk foreigners out of clubs and bars.


Driving 50cc scooters at night with sunglasses on isn’t good. But riding two up and only one helmet between the two, is just plain illegal in so many ways. Glad I never partook in such things.

And what doesn’t say Japan like a little yakuza tattoo…

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