When I first came to Japan, I always carried two toy cameras with me wherever I went. One was a basic Holga, the other a small plastic fisheye lens camera. I liked hanging them off my hip and just snapping off shots as I walked by things that caught my eye.
These days I wouldn’t dream of spending money on buying film, having it developed, and actually ordering pictures, but I’m glad that I did go through a phase where I actually had extra money to spend on such things and was happy to do so.
With the remaining twenty minutes of my lunch break today, I hurried out of the city office building where I work on Wednesdays, entered a covered arcade, and quickly turned down an alley leading to some smaller side roads that connect the inner workings of the city where I live to the main avenues.
Trying to recapture the spirit that I once had, I held my iPhone by its case at hip level and walked quickly. I didn’t stop to frame any of the pictures. I just poked at the shutter button with my thumb and got whatever shots were in the viewfinder.
My finger ended up in a lot of the shots, so I decided to crop them before sharing them here. I don’t think anybody likes pictures that have the photographer’s fingers poking in from the side of the frame, but correct me if I’m wrong.
This part of the city hasn’t changed in what I am guessing is a long time. Compared to other parts of the city, it seemed like maybe it was going to be preserved as a nostalgic relic of past times, but recently, a wave of development has begun. As you can see, some of the older buildings have started coming down, making way for newer ones.