Behind the Scenes

The project began as an accident. I was in Tokyo for a concrete architecture commission and missed my stop on the Yamanote line. Instead of getting off at the next station, I rode the full loop — sixty-four minutes — watching the platforms fill and empty. By the time I returned to my original station, I knew this was the next project.

I rented a small apartment near Nishi-Shinjuku and built my days around the commute schedule. Wake at 5:00am. Load film in the dark. Walk to the station. Ride. Shoot. Ride. Shoot. By 8:30am, the light in the stations changes — it becomes flat, institutional. The magic window is those first two hours when the low sun finds its way through ventilation grates and escalator wells.

The biggest challenge was invisibility. A Western woman with a camera in a Tokyo station is conspicuous. I learned to dress in dark, unstructured clothing. I kept the Leica on a short wrist strap, held at hip height. Most shots were composed without looking through the viewfinder — I memorized the 35mm frame lines and learned to aim by feel. Perhaps one in ten frames was usable. But the ones that worked have a quality I could never achieve by looking: they feel witnessed rather than composed.