Number 3 Daiba

What looks like a peaceful Japanese garden is Number 3 Daiba, a fortification built in 1853 as a response to attempts by US Commodore Perry to open Japan. Beyond that is the artificial island of Odaiba, which was constructed after World War II and one of the planned sites for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. Between the two high-rise apartment building on the left is Tokyo Gate Bridge, the furthest extent of the city into the bay. Number 3 Daiba was originally built several kilometers off the coast of the city in open water. This image comes from our book Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Emptiness: Tokyo Landscapes. Click on the image for a larger view.

Kasai Rinkai Park

Kasai Rinkai Park is on Tokyo Bay. It is an artificial island built to preserve the natural habitat of Tokyo bay destroyed by development. The bridge in in the background is the main highway that connects Tokyo with Chiba, Tokyo Disneyland, and Narita International Airport. The loudspeakers on the post warn people of approaching tsunamis. This image is from our book Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Emptiness: Tokyo Landscape. Click on the image for a larger view.

News: Tsukiji & Athens Photo Festival

Our latest book Tsukiji: Tokyo Fish Market Suite is now available in our store. You can also read about this book here.

Both Tsukiji: Tokyo Fish Market Suite and Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Emptiness: Tokyo Landscape were selected for the Photobook Exhibition at Athen Photo Festival 2017. The festival runs from June 14 to July 30 at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece.

Photobook Showcase

The Griffin Museum of Photography will be hosting events around publishing and the photo book on March 26th. From 10 am to 1 pm, Viginia Swanson will be hosting To Be Published, or Self Publish? From 2 pm to 4 pm, self-publishers, including us, will be showing their work during the Photobook Showcase. We will have copies of our latest book Tsukiji: Tokyo Fish Market Suite available. We hope to see you there.

Moonlight over Tokyo Bay

tokyo_moonlight_over_tokyo_bayJonanjima Seaside Park is on an artificial island in Tokyo bay. When runway B at Haneda airport is open, photographers group there to photograph the incoming planes. The lights you see on the water are ships. Just above those are aircraft lining up for their approach. The constellation Orion can be seen above the clouds on the horizon with the pleiades toward the top of the picture. Click on the image for a larger view.

Night Flight from Tokyo

tokyo_night_flightNaomi and I have just returned from a wonderful trip to Tokyo. This is the first time for us to fly out of Haneda airport in Tokyo bay—we have always used Narita, which is far outside the city.

In most respects, Tokyo is probably as far as you can get from a natural landscape—a large part of the land in this image was “reclaimed” from the bay itself. The rivers that at one point meandered across the alluvial plane the city was built on are fixed in their path. The twenty-three wards of the metropolitan area have an average population density of 13,913 people per km². When combined with the neighboring prefectures of Chiba (foreground), Kanagawa (just in the top left corner), and Saitama, the conurbation totals thirty-three million people, about the same population as Canada, the second largest country by land area. Click on the image for a larger view.