1, 3: Nobuyoshi Araki, Tokyo Story, Heibonsha, 1989
2, 4, 6: Shinjuku, Tokyo. April. 2015 (Google Streetview)
5: Nobuyoshi Araki, Sexual Colors, Intermedia Shuppan, 2002
On an ambling photo walk through Shinjuku back in 2007 I came across a small park populated by some weathered concrete animals. Immediately I recognized the place from Nobuyoshi Araki’s photobook masterpiece Tokyo Story (1989).
Having long enjoyed Araki’s self-referential nature in his pictures it was a delight to spot the same park in Sexual Colors (2002), a photobook that’s a compilation of Araki’s ludicrously wild pictures from his Shashin-Jidai years in the mid 1980s. As a photographer he can be intelligently subtle when he wants- however, this spread was the exact over-the-top opposite. In the other photos of this model he had her posing with a copy of the Tokyo Story book, right smack on the tatami, for his lens.
Since this dusty little park is near Totem Pole Photo Gallery I’ve since revisitedit several times since- these digital snaps are from April, 2015. It has seemed to have fallen into neglect- the Tokyo Story pictures, taken in the late 1980s, show it had seen better days. The sandbox and trellis seen in the first picture, and the slide seen in the third, have been removed. With the proximity of what is going to be the new Olympic Park area for 2020 I wonder just how much longer this charming little corner will remain home to these concrete creatures.
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more notes on my interest in rephotography of sites in Tokyo previously photographed by Nobuyoshi Araki via my other tumblr for stuff that isn’t photos of Japanese camera culture.
