Tokyo Kills Me

Tokyo is the greatest megacity in the world.

This frenetic, superlative Ur-City is the place I have made my home for the last 16 years – a three-year overseas adventure which has become a way of life (sorry, Ma!).

As a writer and especially as a photographer, I find the constant (over-) stimulation a daily source of inspiration. Even after all these years, I start my commute each morning with the thrilling sense of a new adventure about to begin.

Whenever I get a little burned out on daily life here in this overcrowded, hyperactive, workaholic city,  all I need do is turn some random corner, preferably with camera in hand, to discover some fresh new angle or view, or to uncover another ugly or delicious *omoshiroi mono* “interesting object” among the everyday, the overlooked, the quotidian.

Interested? You can check out ongoing photographs of daily life and adventures at [Tokyo Kills Me](https://medium.com/tokyo-kills-me)

Tokyo Kills Me 2.0: Photos

I have always felt that the world is an erotic place… For me cities are enormous bodies of people’s desires. And as I search for my own desires within them, I slice into time, seeing the moment. That’s the kind of camera work I like. — Daido Moriyama

See more photos from Tokyo Kills Me 2.0, circa 2009-2010

 

 

 

Tokyo Kills Me: Photos

Ongoing Updates (5.26.18). Snapshots from daily life in and around Tokyo, a.k.a. “The Big Sushi,” at the end of the second millennium and the start of the third.

Check out the most recent pictures posted, circa 2007-2008, at Tokyo Kills Me: Photos

Tokyo Kills Me: Photos

Ongoing Updates (5.23.18). Snapshots from daily life in and around Tokyo, a.k.a. “The Big Sushi,” at the end of the second millennium and the start of the third.

See more at Tokyo Kills Me: Photos

Tokyo Kills Me: Photos

Ongoing Updates (5.20.18). Snapshots from daily life in and around Tokyo, a.k.a. “The Big Sushi,” at the end of the second millennium and the start of the third.

 

See more snaps at Tokyo Kills Me: Photos 

Tokyo Kills Me: Fall, 2017

Tokyo Kills Me: Fall, 2017. Snapshots from daily life in The Big Sushi.

Pictures from Japan, 2008

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Sento Traditional Japanese Bath, Tokyo Japan

I continue to work through my library of photographs from the last decade I’ve spent here in Japan. Currently I’m back in 2008, a time when I took a lot of landscapes, cityscapes, and “omoshiroi mono” interesting objects, in day and at night, in fair weather and foul, in various states of decay and renewal. See some of the most popular recent uploads below, and visit my galleries at https://500px.com/tokyoaaron/galleries to view the uploads to date. Enjoy!

 

Tokyo High City and Low: Shinjuku Photo Gallery

“There’s an anything goes feeling to the place.”

West Shinjuku

Shinjuku is a micro-cosm of the city as a whole. A circumnavigation of Shinjuku Station reveals to the visitor Tokyo high city and low, from Asia’s largest blue-light district to the international architecture of the Skyscraper District, the unique six-block warren of hipster dive bars that is Golden Gai, Shinto shrines and shopping areas, and more. This photo gallery, made up of images taken over 13+ years of my time in Shinjuku, complements the visitor’s guide I recently posted, Tokyo High City and Low.

Shinjuku Station and Area   “A perfect storm of busy-ness”

 

Portraits of Trees

What more to say? A gallery of tree portraits taken mostly in Japan (a few from Kingston, Ontario). All of these pictures were taken with an Olympus: either e-p1, e-p3, or e-p5 (what can I say? I like the Olympus Pen cameras!), with a Lumix 20mm, or m.Zuiko 25 or 45, all prime natch…

Tokyo Photo Gallery: Roppongi Hills

“Japan’s largest urban redevelopment project.”

A “vertical garden city” for the people, or gated community of 1%ers? Still not clear on this myself. Maybe a bit of both? Mori Tower stands as the centrepiece of the complex, 54 floors of mostly office space with top-shelf tenants including Apple, Barclays Bank, Google, Lenovo, Nokia, and The Pokemon Company. True, Mori Art Museum and Skyview is open to the public, but access is by way of a separate entrance. Also true there are a variety of facilities around the base of the tower, including shops and restaurants, a movie theatre, a stroll garden, and event space, again all open to the public – though separated from the surrounding neighbourhood by walls breached in a couple of places by staircases and the glass, guard-tower-like Metro Hat.