Gallery: PAW 2004-27
Ramen Restaurant
Shibuya Tokyo
These are a photographs that I took while walking around the more residential areas that lie to the north of Shibuya.
Shibuya is famous for being the center of youth culture in Japan. But little known is that if you walk about ten minutes, you can enter some very quiet, residential neighborhoods.
This is a ramen store in one of those areas. True to form, the restaurant owner was gruff and individualistic. I asked for the set-ramen and he barked at me that there was no more rice. Err... I guess I'll just have the regular? Saying nothing, he turned to the stove.
But the huge bowl of steaming noodles that appeared five minutes later was well worth a little yelling at.
The photos on this page were taking with my Leica M3 on Fuji Provia 100F film. High contrast slide film is much finickier of correct exposure than negative film with its wider latitude. Yet with a small handheld meter like the Gossen Digisix, it is possible to take very nice photographs with vintage equipment on contemporary slide film. Just because your camera doesn't have a meter doesn't mean you need to give up slide film. Remember that in the 1960s and 1970s, everyone was shooting Kodachrome slides.
This grocery store was being run by an aged-couple in their sixties. The street that it was on used to be a shopping arcade. But the fish store next door had closed its shutters and some local kids* had left their mark on it. Still, I liked the warm light from the incadescent bulbs in the store. It gave the store a homey, welcoming feel.
* Several LUGers notified me that Neck Face is actually a New York phenomena. So either the local kids copied it from a magazine, or Neck Face has made it to Tokyo. Some more Neck Face links:
A downtown neighborhood (or temple grounds as it might be here) is just not complete without its resident cat. Japan does seem to have a lot of stray cats compared to the USA. Part of this may simply be population density - the number of stray cats per capita is the same, but there are just many more cats per square kilometer.
Or it may be cultural. Cats are considered good luck in Japanese culture. They do eat mice, after all. Merchants often have a small statue of a cat with its paw raised in their store window. Called a "maneki-neki" it means "beckoning cat" and is thought to invite in (paying) customers.
Finally, the photo below is of a woman in a frilly elizabethan dress waiting at the main intersection in Shinjuku while taxis zip past her. The photo actually belongs in the previous paw (#26). Costume Play (CosPlay) had up to now been restricted to places like Harakuju where people show off their costumes. But now they are becoming part of regular clothes for the new generation.
Equipment:Leica M3, 35mm f/3.5 Summaron, Fuji Provia 100F and Ilford HP5+
