Hey greeting from Tokyo japan
I was encouraged by a friend to start blogging the deeper story of my photos. Mostly I am shooting street and underground culture in Koenji area of Tokyo
Koenji is the birth place of punk music in Tokyo. A place full of Musicians, used clothing stores, original fashion, cheap drink and eats and many misfits. Japan is a pretty homogeneous society and there is not much tolerance for self expression. You can see there are only a few areas of self expression like fashion and hobbies like gaming etc. There is a lot of pressure to conform in Japan. As a gaijin or foreigner, I know this all too well, but even the Japanese feel these pressures. Jiyuu is the Japanese word for freedom. This area has always been a place for misfits and hentai people to feel free. Not the sexual hentai meaning, but strange...at least strange in the eyes of the Japanese.
The guy in the photo is Aniki a local street musician who is unique to Koenji. He encourages people to be free to be themselves...Koenji spirit.
So this is where I have been living for 20 years. You can see more photos of the area on my Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tokyo_tableaux/
