The Tokyo-based street photographer Brian Wood-Koiwa often finds new spots to explore serendipitously. He opens Google Maps on his phone, chooses a subway station he’s never visited before, hops on the train, and wanders around the area to see what he discovers.
“This city is nooks and crannies on steroids,” he tells me.
Having lived in Tokyo for two decades, Wood-Koiwa is less interested in the main tourist centers and more passionate about the hidden gems.
Travel along the Yamanote Line and you’ll come across the old neighborhood of Yanaka, where you can still see Buddhist temples and shrines dating back centuries and hear monks chanting inside.
Follow that same railway line, and you’ll also stop at Sugamo.
“Nicknamed ‘Grannies’ Harajuku,’ Sugamo is home to an adorable old-time shopping street called Jizo Dori that is popular with the old folk in the area,” the photographer says. “Thus, the stores there cater to this demographic, offering traditional sweets, teas, and ‘obaasan (granny) fashion’ boutiques.”
He’s become a regular at Sugamo, where he often sees shoppers stopping to chat with a Buddhist nun, buying snacks, or simply resting in the afternoon sun. And, unlike many photographers, Wood-Koiwa embraces that harsh, midday sunlight and the strong, graphic shadows it creates.
“Grey overcast days are not so great in a predominately gray concrete city like Tokyo,” the artist admits. “Everything just washes out.”
To navigate the hard lighting conditions of bright, sunny days, Wood-Koiwa sometimes takes several different exposures to ensure one comes out just right.
When he shoots at nighttime, he leans into the low lighting rather than fighting it. He looks for sources of artificial light—an illuminated coin laundry, for instance—exposes for those areas, and lets the rest of the scene fall into darkness. In some ways, that darkness helps to capture the silent atmosphere of the city at night.
“Contrary to popular belief, Tokyo is a very quiet city, and night is even quieter,” Wood-Koiwa explains. “Outside the neon blast zones of Shinjuku, Shibuya, and other nightlife hubs, it feels like you are under a thick, fluffy blanket—sounds are muffled in a way.”
Whether he’s working in hard daylight or near darkness, the photographer also tries not to get too bogged down in settings while he’s caught in the moment.
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“Unsharpness, a bit of blur, and out-of-focus areas get a bad rap, but they should not,” he says. “It’s a city, and cities move. Not everything needs to be in perfect focus. The gist/impression can be more important and rewarding than a perfectly sharp and exposed image.”
This idea of finding beauty in imperfection is a driving force behind Wood-Koiwa’s vision as an artist—and a style he’s dubbed “Urban Weird.”
Having grown up in a rural area, he’s always felt drawn to the spontaneity and unpredictability of city life.
“I believe that cities are living entities unto themselves,” he explains. “I love their beautiful grit. I think ugly can be beautiful and am attracted to photographing the more forgotten parts of the city. There are stories in crumbling façades.”
To match the “beautiful grit” of the city itself, Wood-Koiwa has been shooting more film lately and embracing all the “happy accidents” that come with going analog.
These days, he uses a Leica MP, Rolleiflex, and Polaroid SX-70, in addition to his digital FujiFilm X-Pro2 (his main workhorse camera).
The Leica, long beloved by street photographers, has become a favorite. He pairs it with a compact 35mm so he can be quick on his feet and discreet as he moves throughout the city.
The vintage Polaroid, on the other hand, has its own personality, and it’s relatively lightweight.
Wood-Koiwa is open to using all kinds of lenses, even those not typically seen in street photography. He made this portrait of two women at the train station with a telephoto lens on a Canon DSLR.
“When I started out, I had always heard that you should use a wide-ish angle fixed lens for street photography because it will force you to get up close to the people you are photographing,” he says. “I quickly rejected that advice. I am a very shy person. I don’t want to get up close to people; it is just not who I am.”
For shy street photographers, the subway is an ideal playground. The New York subway was famously photographed by Walker Evans in the 1930s and Helen Levitt in the 1970s. For Wood-Koiwa, the Tokyo subway has become a second home.
“Trains and subways are incredibly important in Tokyo,” the artist says. “Everything and everybody revolves around them and their stations. Tokyo does not name most of its streets, so we don’t say what street we live on. Instead, we say whatever station is closest. The train/subway network makes up the arteries and veins of this gargantuan entity we call Tokyo.”
“Gargantuan” is the right word.
“Tokyo is officially not a city but a metropolis encompassing ‘central Tokyo’ as well as the administrative area (like a state, province, prefecture) of Tokyo, which includes suburban cities and even mountain villages in the far west of the region,” Wood-Koiwa adds.
Because the city is so dense and sprawling, he knows he’ll never run out of places to explore. While his outings might start with a random spot on Google Maps, Wood-Koiwa never knows where he’ll wind up at the end of the day—or what he’ll find along the way.
In a safe city like Tokyo, taking the train to an unknown place and getting lost in the process is part of the fun.
“There is just as much, if not more, life going on inside the stations and underground than outside and on the surface,” the photographer tells me. “Things are happening much faster because people are trying to get to where they need to go as quickly as possible.’
“However, inside the subway itself, everything slows to an almost complete stop when people have no choice but to stay put—all while the train contradictorily speeds along.”
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Browse more work by Brian Wood-Koiwa over at his Offset portfolio. Follow along on Instagram at @urbanweirdphoto, and check out his website for inspiration.
Brian Wood-Koiwa also leads small, customized photo walks throughout Tokyo. You can book a spot here.
“I give my clients the time and opportunity to take it slow and really notice the real city—the real Tokyo,” he says.
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