Tokyo Weekender - June 2017

Words by Alec Jordan and photos by Luca Eandi
What is it that draws photographers to
Tokyo’s streets? We ask Weekender’s former
man behind the lens, Luca Eandi, to describe
the appeal and the experience of capturing
everyday moments in Japan’s capital
Part of street photography’s
appeal is its
capacity to make you
look at the objects and
people that you pass by every
day in a different way. There’s
something in another person’s
decision to frame, capture, and
share those mundane moments
or objects that pushes us to give
it more consideration, to hold it
in our mind’s eye for just a bit
longer – to recognize its beauty,
its humor, its wonder, or perhaps
its fundamental sadness.
In a city that changes as fast
as Tokyo does, it’s even more
important to record the fleeting
past as neighborhoods change,
block by block and building
by building – particularly in
neighborhoods like Yanaka, or
Shimokitazawa, or Tomigaya;
places where the Showa spirit
[see page 22] can still be felt, and
which are even being curated by
a younger generation.
That’s certainly the feeling
we get when we look at the body
of work of photographer Luca
Eandi, who has been responsible
for the pictures and words
of our area guides for the past
year. As he was getting ready to
move back to the United States
after several years in Japan, we
wanted to know more about how
he ended up doing an interview
with a German radio station
about Japanese signs, the lessons
he’s learned from street photography
in Tokyo, and the shot
he never got that will draw him
back to Japan – some day.
20 | JUNE 2017 | TOKYO WEEKENDER