Lance Shields
Photography
Lance Shields
Photography
  • Strange Nature
  • Fragments
  • Nothing with a Name
  • Surface Tension
  • Remembering Seal Rock
  • Eighty-Sixed in LA
  • We Got Seoul
  • Return to Tokyo
  • Painted in Kyoto Light
  • Chromatic Shift
  • Way Up Close
  • Song of Mission St
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Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph

Return to Tokyo

I lived in Tokyo for ten years from 2001 to 2011. Shortly after the Dotcom crash, I moved there to pursue my first Japan-based design job. I raised a family there and lived in the suburbs. For me, this sprawling city actually feels small, with all the familiar places and faces. But not being Japanese myself, there is also a strangeness in the culture and language that I know yet do not completely understand. I speak the language but not perfectly, I know the customs but not as someone raised there. It is as if I was not connected to a part of my body. These photos chronicle my return to Tokyo during the pandemic in spring 2022. I walked the city with my camera and around every corner, I had familiar yet strange encounters.

Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph
Return to Tokyo photograph