A Day in The Life – Yoyogi

May 8th, 2012By Category: Photography

knife sharpener

Left the house with no plan (as usual) and was heading towards the station when I saw this guy. I normally see him on the weekends on the side of the road. I go up to him and say hi and he looks up to me and says hi back. Realizing he is gonna have to strain his neck looking up anytime he wants to say anything I decided to sit on the floor next to him.

I asked him about what he does and said that he sharpens knives and scissors. Depending on the type they take 15mins at earliest and costs 400yen and up depending on item.

I asked him how he got into it and he said that he had been doing this type of thing for 50 years. He is 80 now and used to work as a builder until he got too old and now does this.

He told me that I looked young and said that he thinks that I am 17 years old. I laughed and said, “nah, I’m 27 yo.”

We talked about how what he was doing is rare and I have never seen anybody doing that in the streets before. He told me that he has been on TV and there are some posters of him nearby in the area. He said that I can take his photo but that lots of people have already taken it so I won’t be able to make money from it. He tells me I should wait for a customer to bring him a knife before taking his photo and 10 seconds later someone comes.

I bought him a bottle of water and put it next to him and he told me to drink it. I lied and said I already have one and he reluctantly accepted it. After taking a few pictures of him working and him looking at me, I decided to move on out (a lot of people walking past staring etc). I tried to leave him 500yen for taking his time but he said, “I’m not a real model so I can’t take your money”. I put 500 yen on his box and he told me to take the money back and got a bit angry. He pulled out his money box and showed it to me, saying he has his own money and he is gonna work hard and keep earning more. I verbally nodded and said to myself, “damn straight”.

Jumped on the train and had to change to get the express, a girl with short hair got off the same doors as me.

The Girl with shirt hair

I ask if she went abroad to learn and she says, “I learned in university. But I have traveled the world”.

Our eyes met and I said, “Yo,” and she said, “Yo,” back with a pronunciation that suggested that she might speak English. I ask if she does and she says yes. I ask if she went abroad to learn and she says, “I learned in university. But I have traveled the world”.

She more or less had my full attention at that point. I asked her a bunch of questions about it.

She said that she made the trip by herself traveling to 9 countries for 39 days taking the train to travel around each country she arrived at. Morocco was her favorite country. I was impressed since she is young and doing something like that is definitely going against the grain (even more so because she is Japanese).

I told her that her hair is cool and she showed me pics of a model called Ota Rina who inspired her to cut it short. Her objective for today was to meet her friend who was gonna take pics of her because it was her birthday earlier that month. I told her I was meeting my friend, Alani, to take pics and we ended up deciding to all just go hang together.

Got out from the station took a few shots of her with Portra 400 film. My light meter was telling me I could only shoot at a setting that I didn’t want too (little light). So I set it up, looked through my camera and my cameras light meter was telling me there was more light and I could change the settings. I usually never look at the camera meter, I decided to become an optimist and trust the camera instead of the light meter and ended up owning myself. I was shooting iso 400 film, but my camera was set to iso 1000 for some reason (photos came out terrible).

Meet her friend and she is cool, and could speak some English too.

Her friend

Asked her how they know each other and she says that they are uni friends both studying English and literature.

We go into the park and take a few pics and me her end up talking about white balance, shooting in RAW and a bunch of other camera setting related topics.

Later in the day while I was taking some test shots she ended up helping me out as an assistant. I needed to fix her friends scarf around her neck and her jacket and stuff but didn’t wanna touch her. So I would put my hand up and say “Assisto!!” and she would like run over and help me out adjusting her friends clothes

While walking through the park we met this guy. We did the whole “hey, you have a cool camera thing,” and started talking to each other.

kuroiwayohei

He was doing a cool project where he would take photos of people he meets and then get them to answer a question and write down a question for the next person.

Alani showed up at that point and wrote me the question, “What is your fave food from London,” in which I replied, “Chinese food!!!”. I then asked the question, “What music do you listen to, to lift your spirits,” to the next person.

Hung around for a while shooting and chilling then started gravitating towards the exit and we saw this guy.

On assignment in Japan

Did the whole cool camera thing and started talking to each other. He had like 3 cameras, a tripod on his waist a light meter that looked like a compass and some cool binocular thingies that tell you exactly how far away someone is from you so you don’t have to look through the camera to focus. He was from America and was in Japan shooting an assignment. Today was his day off so he was out shooting for fun. Really cool dude, spoke to him about developing film and he told me to buy a Jobo tank and a water bath and try developing color film because it is easy (everybody says its hard). He said he had been doing photography for 10 years and used to print and do a lot of darkroom stuff but hasn’t recently. However, he said that he is looking to get back into it. He has shot for some big companies and stuff, so was cool how chilled and down to earth he was. You know how the whole photography scene is right?

He filled out the question paper and let the other guy take a photo of him for his project. We all then chilled for a bit and all took photos of each other. Wished him a safe trip back, he went off in one direction and we all exited the park in the opposite direction. Before we all left I took a quick group photo.

A group photo

The end. Wowzers, I wonder how many people will actually read this.

Author of this article

Ade Ogunsanya

Taking portraits of strangers is becoming quite popular among photographers nowadays. I find that I normally see two types; 1) Complete focus on fashion with not much of a focus on technical photography 2) Technically sounds pictures that focus on repetition (taking the exact same headshot over and over again etc). What I strive for is a happy balance that incorporates a mix of good photography using composition and color theory and some elements of fashion.

For me it is more than just just collecting photos. The encounter and interaction is equally as important. The chance to meet new people and put a smile on people's faces is priceless.

If you see me around Tokyo with a big film camera on my neck come say hi and I will take your picture.

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