Tokyo 9 - CineStill 400D
Back to Tokyo! Street photography, Yakuza guys, subway, vinyl shop, camera store, and nice halation effect on 2nd BASE camera shop.
It’s time to leave Sapporo and come back to Tokyo to the last segment of our incredible 18 days and 28 rolls of film journey! Loaded with a CineStill 400D on the M7, aboard we go. This roll is filled up with random shots of people on the streets, and subway trains and stations.
The most widely recognized photographer associated with yakuza portraits is Bruce Gilden, who captured intense street portraits, some including yakuza figures, though not as his primary subject. The photo on the left below reminds me of his work. While you have these guys in one side, on the other, we have a woman in a shopping mall waiting for the elevator to go up, with her luggage, the complete opposite side of things!
And of course, the taxis! I got in love with the japanese cars, and I made a dedicated post just talking about it with the selection of my best car photos…
Japanese car 𝐸𝓍𝒸𝓁𝓊𝓈𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝒮𝑒𝓁𝑒𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃
I saw it again, and again, and again. That cute mirror, sitting just above the roofline. There’s nothing accidental or weird about it. The driver can check what’s behind without twisting his neck. It’s been there for decades. It works. So why change it?
These shots were taken on our way to the subway, our destination was a camera store, we were headed to 2nd Base Camera shop.
So far in this trip, I still didn’t find a sweet camera store, but that was about to change, when we arrived in a gallery with some interesting stores, including a vinyl shop, where I found this guy trying to find a good deal. The composition feels deliberate despite its spontaneity. The angle from behind avoids facial identification but still conveys curiosity and intent. It evokes themes of nostalgia, analog media, and aging gracefully within a modern, fast-paced world.
His journey for vinyls is my journey to cameras, and I found the gold mine! 2nd Base had many film stocks, good equipment and merchandise, and an incredible staff who even got a photo of myself.
And to me, the banger of the roll comes ahead. At center is a stereo viewer, flanked by a boxed Rollei 35 and a vintage Olympus camera. The bottom row showcases rare film boxes: Centuria Super 200, Kodakcolor VR 1000, Fujicolor Super HR 1600, and a Kodachrome 64, suggesting a collector’s reverence for discontinued stocks. Like, C’MON, LOOK AT THAT STOREFRONT !
The window's reflection reveals myself, and I’m getting used to CineStill halations, I know how the halation would come out, that’s what caught my attention when doing this shot — gI saw it when I saw the strong light reflex on the stereo viewer.
After getting super excited with that shot, we went somewhere else, but that’s the topic for our next post!
Love these ones, Raf!