all streets shibuya
A local guide made by walking
Shibuya, another pole for
a globe-trotting photographer
Vol.09 Naoki Ishikawa
(Photographer)
2022.12.16
He has traversed from the North Pole to the South Pole under his own steam, was the youngest person ever to climb the highest peaks of the seven continents at the time and has done field work in Micronesia on the art of star navigation. ...... Naoki Ishikawa is a photographer who has traveled the globe far and wide. He has just completed an expedition to Pakistan in 2022, summiting the world's second highest and most difficult peak, K2 (8,611m) and Broad Peak (8,051m). For Ishikawa-san, Shibuya has been another pole in a life spent traveling around the world. He was born and bred in the Hatsudai area of Shibuya and worked part-time on Cat Street as a student. Camera in hand, we walked around Shibuya to discover how it looks through the lens of a photographer.
A city-born photographer
driven by a yearning for nature
”Next week I’m off to Nepal to climb Manaslu. I actually climbed it 10 years ago, but a friend invited me along.”
So remarks Ishikawa-san nonchalantly ahead of his expedition to the world's 8th highest peak (8163m) in the Himalayas. Does his Shibuya birthplace play a part in his decision to live for travel?
“Until kindergarten I lived in Hatsudai. So I guess I had some kind of longing toward nature. If I had been born at the foot of a mountain I wouldn’t have been into climbing and if I had grown up by the sea I would have been indifferent to it. It’s because I grew up in Tokyo that I started to gravitate towards the mountains and the sea.”
The ever-changing city and
a photographer’s connection
Ishikawa-san went to the poles as if propelled from the city, and then returned to another pole, Shibuya.
“No matter where I go, I often change trains at Shibuya Station, and when I do, I feel that I have come home. I also come to Shibuya for 35mm film shop such as Utsurundesu, and often do some writing at "Café Renoir" near Miyashita Park. Even though I moved away when I was a child, Shibuya has always been close to my heart.”
While a student, he worked at the newly opened Patagonia Shibuya store, shopped at mountain climbing stores around Tokyu, and went to the movies at "Eurospace.” A place he has long frequented there is “Choraku”.
“The upper floor is a soapland in Shibuya. Though I don't know if that helps or not, it is cheap even if you eat a full meal, so even now I often go there after a photo shoot. That's about the only place I've been going to since the old days......Shibuya is just changing so fast. It is different from Ikebukuro and Shinjuku, and I can't think of any other town that is similar, even overseas. I find it fascinating that the landscape can change so rapidly.”
A collection of photos documenting
Shibuya under the pandemic.
“It is natural for time to pass, and I may not be the type to harbor much nostalgia for it. However, as a photographer, I have a strong desire to gaze at and document the ever-changing landscape.”
His words are borne out in “STREETS ARE MINE”, a photo book released in 2022 documenting Shibuya in the grip of the pandemic.
“I have always had this nebulous desire to photograph my hometown, Tokyo. As I couldn’t go overseas during the pandemic, I decided to take a fresh look at my own backyard. I went up those big buildings for the first time like Shibuya Sky and Shibuya Stream. That was when it struck me that this Shibuya unfamiliar to me was popping up all over the place.”
Intrusion into an unknown
rodent-ridden side of Shibuya
The collection starts with the démodé high-rises of Shibuya and continues with antigen testing on the street and the bustle of Halloween, before showing the rats that roam around Center Gai as if they own the place.
“ I started shooting the day the first state of emergency was declared. I had heard that rats were proliferating, but there were literally swarms of them. I became somewhat curious, so decided to get on their tail and start taking pictures. I carried two cameras in my pockets, and if I saw a rat, I would snap a picture off with no viewfinder. I was similarly shocked to see all the drunks staggering around clutching cheap booze. It occurred to me that for while it’s a familiar city, there is a great deal I don't know about it."
A stone placed at the bottom of Spain Slope, or a Dōsojin in front of LOFT. The spots that caught his eye were all things that, like rats, were portals to unknown worlds. How long have they existed, and who put them there and for what purpose?
“I believe that unknown landscapes are concealed within familiar places. The city is changing so quickly that the places where I was able to encounter the unknown will soon be gone. But that's why I am happy to have recorded them in my photographs.”