A photographic record of contemporary Kyoto
The first time I saw Kyoto I didn’t realize I’d seen it. Passing through the city, on my way to Osaka on the bullet train, there seemed to be no end to the miles of factories, sterile concrete housing projects, pachinko gambling parlors and garish love motels that sprawl from Tokyo to Osaka. I expected Kyoto to stand out from the industrial and urban blight that dominates so much of Japan’s landscape; I hoped for a glimpse of the famed temples, wooden homes and stunning natural setting. What I didn’t realize, sitting on the train that day, was that I couldn’t see ‘Kyoto’ because the city I had imagined from a thousand photographs doesn’t exist anymore.
