Facing Shibuya - End of the Heisei Era

My very first photo exhibition was "Facing Shibuya", held in Place M in 2011. I had always been drawn to Shibuya, the location of my first job in Japan (as an English teacher, in 1990), and a place that, to me, seemed to be filled with some of the most beautiful and interesting people in Tokyo. So in 2010 I pointed my camera into the crowd waiting to cross the scramble, and photographed the people I saw. After exhibiting Facing Shibuya in 2011, and again in 2012 in the Nikon Salon, I put down that camera, so to speak, and ended that series. In the pursuing years, I would go on to take photos in Yoyogi, Yokohama, Kabukicho... and Shibuya again, but never the close ups of Faces that I had taken in 2010.

That is, until this year. As Japan's Heisei era drew to an end, and the Reiwa era promised a new beginning, I decided to return to this series one more time. Shibuya has changed in the nine years since I took the previous photographs. The people have changed. The landscape has changed (the smoking area is gone...) And I, nearly a decade older, have undoubtedly changed as well.

But one thing has not changed. Shibuya is still a magical place that draws some of the most interesting, beautiful, and unique people in Tokyo. What I said about the previous collection remains the same as well: "this exhibition is a collection of portraits of people who, for their own personal reasons, have chosen to face the lights, crowds, noise and grit that are Shibuya."

Facing Shibuya (2011):
http://www.placem.com/schedule/2011/20110704/110704.html