The Metropolitan Expressway started to expand in a rush when Tokyo Olympic was held. Public works contractors all over the world were surprised that it was more like a racing circuit rather than a high way. There're chaotic traffic merges from left and right. Junctions appear dizzily one after another. Purchasing lots faced rough going, so they had on other choices but to bridge over roads and rivers. This created difference of elevation as well as stress for cars and humans. If you drive this freeway for the first time, most likely you'll be brought away to a wrong destination. Traffic flow is always bad. The former Governor of Tokyo, Mr. Ishihara used to call it "cerebral infarction" and his irony has a point. I wonder if the Metropolitan Expressway best represents Tokyo. This city repeats crushing and building, and it isn't interested in the ridgelines of time. It's extremely greedy and carnal just like cell-division. The Metropolitan Expressway runs between the cells and I think it provides the very scenes of Tokyo.
I thought it would be cool to shoot the scene including the windshield with the Ultra Wide-Heliar 12mm and a high contrast film with rough grains. So, I grabbed the camera and started driving.
The Metropolitan Expressway is like a cinema. I drive between buildings. I go up and down, left and right. This is like a Sci-Fi scene that I watched in my childhood. And, all of the sudden, I'm dumped into the darkness. Light comes in between the girders of sound barrier and the exhaust gas is like a smoke. When I drive through them, the light seems like flashes and causes temporal loss of vision. The casts run nearby are total strangers that I'll never see again. How amusing. The windshield of Land Rover Defender is square and works like a cinema screen.
Driving the Metropolitan Expressway symbolizes living in Tokyo. Or, it's a Tokyo life itself. Most of the time, transmission is engaged to the 2nd or 3rd position. I want to avoid this situation because it's the greatest burden on the engine. Suddenly, the front view becomes clear, so I hit the accelerator, but soon I get to the tail of the traffic. If I drive slowly, I get hurried by the car behind me. If I drive fast, someone merges into my lane suddenly. It's best not to go against the current and just go with the flow. And again, I see so many taillights. I wonder why... One more thing. With a photographic eye, the Metropolitan Expressway is extremely contrasty. Lights shining between the buildings are just like spot lights and like a flash.
One tip to drive efficiently is to free your sensor from the body. Not to mention that you must check the driver's face on the mirror and of hands on the steering wheel of the car runs in front of you, you need to grasp positional relationship between cars that you passed. In other words, you need to see the cars that are not visible. Furthermore, you see yourself from directly above. It's about freeing yourself. In short, you need to understand how other people, including yourself, feel. If I use a photographic metaphor, it's about integrating yourself into the scene. If you think about these matters, you won't be bored in the traffic... Not!
If I drive at the same time of the day, I see the same cars. I don't know where they are heading, but we always drive on the same route and part at the same junction, Even though I don't drive tomorrow, s/he will be driving. Oh, there s/he goes again today, as expected. I even feel everyone is heading for the same destination even though they don't seem so. The same may be said of meeting people? By the way, no other building is more beautiful than multi-level crossing, I think.
I wonder how many cars passed since the route between Kyobashi and Shibaura was opened to traffic. While making repairs like installing stents into blood vessels, the Metropolitan Expressway still continues to expand. My car is too small like a grain of moment. Whenever I look at the piers and the girders, I feel like I'm seeing the Mandara. Am I exaggerating? (Photos by Akio Inden, Text by K)
photo data:LEICA M4 , Voightlaender ULTRA WIDE-HELIAR 12mm F5.6 ASPHERICAL Ⅱ
from the top first, third, fourth photo ILFORD DELTA 3200 PROFESSIONAL/ second, fifth, sixth photo KODAK TRI-X (+2PUSH)
All Photos by A,INDEN / Written by K
It's really fun to shoot including windshield. This is made possible by the Voigtlander ULTRA WIDE-HELIAR 12mm with the 121° angle of view. This ultra wide view is available at this size! And, it's very difficult to master, but it's also fun because of that. This lens will give you a spice in your shooting. And, I dare not to recommend the external viewfinder. Even with it, you need some good training the output with what you see through it. Isn't it also fun to fail? Just keep shooting until you master it!
Isn't it cool to capture urban scenes with a contrasty film with rough grains? This time, I wanted to get more contrast by push-processing the TRI-X (ISO400) by 2 stops.
Also, I developed the ILFORD DELTA 3200 straight. At Yodobashi Camera, you can do that. Once you get used to digital photography, film photography seems like a lot of work including time consuming developing and scanning. But, because of that, you look forward to checking the results and your imagination grows when you look into the viewfinder. Taking photography for fun is unrelated with efficiency. In the digital age, film photography has now become a tasteful pastime.
