35mm, f/22, 5 sec, ISO 200
Clichéd, or just awesome? I’ve seen this shot so many times- at least a dozen or so times from Thomas Hawk himself (see his Escalators set), but it’s still a shot I enjoy seeing- it just looks so smooth at times and so crisp at others.
Anyways, maybe it was just because I had just spent two weeks in Europe, a continent where people uphold decades-old traditions, but I was very much surprised by just how “American” Tokyo was. Excepting the boys and girls in their school uniforms and the occasional woman in a kimono, the dress was very much how we know it in the States- shorts and tees dominated the streets which were dotted with McDonalds and Starbucks every couple blocks. Many of the clothing retail stores were either the same chains we have in the US (and Europe) or were very similar in terms of style and pricing. This photograph was taken in a Zara about a block away from another Zara, a McDonalds, a KFC, a Burger King, a Starbucks, and at least two Starbucks knockoffs called Excelsior Cafe.
I’m not sure what exactly I’m getting at here. I guess I was just somewhat surprised at the level of non-traditionalism there was in a country that I thought to be much more traditional than most.