Local Lens: An Authentic View of Tokyo with @airnude
In this series, local Instagrammers show you their favorite places to shoot around where they live. To explore more of Tokyo, follow @airnude on Instagram.
“Being born and raised in Tokyo, there is no other charm about this place than all the stories I can find in it,” says Tokyo Instagrammer Suguru Azuma (@airnude). For Suguru, these stories are mostly about his memories. “I like to shoot all over Itabashi Ward and Ikebukuro District. I haven’t really thought about why, but, come to think of it, these are areas around my hometown that I was able to explore by foot when I was in elementary school.”
Suguru finds inspiration in things that remind him of his childhood days. He often captures honest, everyday scenes which to others may seem trivial. Sculptures peeking out of a neighbor’s house that terrified him as a child, a wall of an elementary school that his friend used to attend, a parking lot where a friend’s house used to stand—these are some of the nostalgic locations that Suguru likes to shoot in old suburban areas of Tokyo.
Suguru also likes to discover simple, unembellished sceneries in huge entertainment districts like Shinjuku-Kabukicho, Shibuya, Harajuku and Ueno. “In these places, there is a high chance you will run into something unexpected. Tokyo has the modern, cosmopolitan areas as well as the old, traditional places like my hometown. I like to keep a mix of photos from both sides of the city,” he says.