Tokyo At Night – A One-Shot Story

The goal of every travel photographer is to capture the essence of a place or a people in a single image. The challenge – beyond the obvious technical issues related to hauling gear hundreds or thousands of miles from home – is what do we know about that place or culture, particularly if the trip in question is our first time to the venue.

Some years back, when I was hanging on with stubborn insistence that I could remain an active professional by shooting Kodak Ektachrome and FujiFilm Provia, I went to Tokyo to build up my travel portfolio. I knew the city fairly well, having worked there as a foreign correspondent for a major American financial wire service. I set a goal of the trip to capture on film images that showed the Japanese work ethic. Despite my familiarity with the city, I was uncertain how I was going to do that with a single image beyond the cliches of hard-working cooks in the city’s ubiquitous ramen restaurants.

My travel film photo kit at the time kit was one of the sweetest I’ve used: the light weight Cosina Voigtlander Bessa R body (Cosina’s initial venture into the “Leica-like” rangefinder world) and three small screw-mount Cosina Voigtlander primes: a 35mm F2.5; a 50mm F1.5, and a 75mm. The film was Kodak’s Portra 400 UC, a high saturation, ISO 400, C-41 emulsion that I miss very much. The secret weapon of this kit was the Bessa R’s extremely bright viewfinder. The camera’s Leica lens mount is the Leica screw or thread mount. But if you’ve ever shot with a Leica screw mount model, such as the IIIF, you know what a challenge it can be to nail focus, let alone manage composition.

The real test of the Bessa R came at night. The light body, paired with small and fast lenses, made for a high quality, easy to carry kit. And I recall that the camera’s center weighted meter indicated an exposure of something like 1/15^th of a second at F4 with the 35mm F2.8 lens. Now, I could hand-hold an SLR such as a Nikkormat FT2 at 1/15^th of a second in my 20s. But by the time this photograph was made, I was in my early 60s and successfully hand-holding any camera at 1/15^th of a second was a distant memory

But one night, strolling along the elevated tracks of the circle Tokyo train line, the JR Yamanote line, I came across this scene: a colorful fast-food restaurant with a window that framed the hard-working cooking staff. The restaurant was outlined in red and nestled under the Yamanote Line’s tracks near Shimbashi Station. It was also a 5-minute walk from my hotel in the Shimbashi district, which is known for bars and restaurants that cater to Tokyo’s ubiquitous salary men.

I love frame within frame compositions, and this one was classic, particularly with the young worker near the window. I watched the scene for a few minutes, and realized that waiting for people to enter the photo usually resulted in the kitchen window being blocked by curious passersby.

I wasn’t carrying a travel tripod or a monopod with me. So, I leaned against a street light pole, put the camera to my face while bracing against the pole, exhaled softly, and engaged the shutter. It worked. The photograph is sharp, the high saturation ISO 400 film was perfect for the lighting, and it captured two of the kitchen staff hard at work, the 35mm lens was wide enough to include the lanterns, and did I mention that the photograph is sharp?

The photograph has also turned out to be one of my most popular sellers. But for rational reasons that elude me today, I eventually traded the Bessa R kit for one built around a Cosina Voigtlander Bessa R2C, with four Contax mount lenses. I’m happy with the setup – the Zeiss 35mm, and 50mm primes are among the finest lenses I’ve ever owned. I’ve written about that kit in an earlier 35mmc post. Still, the lure of Cosina Voigtlander’s odd forays into rangefinder film photography continues to tempt. I recently bought a used Voigtlander Bessa T body and a CV 50mm F1.5 lens. Despite the kit spending more time in the closet than on my shoulder, I continue to keep an eye out for an M-mount 35mm lens (I had a 35mm viewfinder). You never know.

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