2000年5月2日の東京 火曜日 彼方此方 Tokyo Here & There

I took film photographs from around the time I was eight-years-old, and then video for a few years (1990-93), followed by a year or two of almost exclusively text, and then photos again, with digital photography images from the year 2000 - when this batch of photos was taken.

2000年5月2日の東京火曜日彼方此方 Tokyo Here & There

Since digital photography enabled me to take a lot of pictures, I view these pictures (in a way) as a continuation of the early nineties video project. A decade after this (a little before 2010) I started taking video again, so the twenty year gap between 1990 and 2010 is nicely filled in right in the middle with these images.

2000年5月2日の東京火曜日彼方此方 Tokyo Here & There

These automatic ticket gates were new at the time, but these have already been replaced with the IC card type. These early ones only read magnetic cards, so everything had to be run through them. They broke down from time-to-time and seemed to be a headache to maintain (they were amazingly complicated mechanically - it was always interesting to see them opened up when being serviced).

The old type Chuo Line trains... I miss this type of train carriage - it seemed warmer somehow than the new types that make extensive use of synthetic materials.

2000年5月2日の東京火曜日彼方此方 Tokyo Here & There

Hard to explain exactly, but in many ways, May 2000 was a vastly more optimistic time than December 2015. So many things have gone wrong and headed in a bad direction since then....

2000年5月2日の東京火曜日彼方此方 Tokyo Here & There

I was going to delete one or the other of these two pictures, but decided to leave them both in as a sort of simulation of a video showing me walking across the street.

2000年5月2日の東京火曜日彼方此方 Tokyo Here & There

Somewhere in Yotsuya (四ッ谷) I think...

2000年5月2日の東京火曜日彼方此方 Tokyo Here & There

There used to be side streets with old houses like these all over Tokyo, but it's becoming quite rare to see scenes like this in the central area now.