shashasha

Tokyo street photography from the 1980s.

In 1985, Shoshi Okamoto was a student at the Tokyo Photographic College (now Tokyo Visual Arts College) and learned from two of the great Japanese masters of the medium, Daido Moriyama and Masahisa Fukase. Encouraged to shoot a lot of photographs, Okamoto spent the year of 1985 capturing the streets and alleys of Tokyo’s 23 wards. And yet the photos were never published, stored away in the back of a closet for more than 30 years before Okamoto found them again.
His photographs—a true time capsule of sorts—depict life in Tokyo in 1985 in singular episodes and situations, each filled with detail and vivacity.

“I was immediately transported to the streets of Tokyo in 1985, thirty-five years ago. That effect spoke to the accuracy and power of Okamoto’s portrayal of the reality and actuality of the streets’ bygone days.” —from Daido Moriyama’s afterword (available in Japanese and English translation)