Typical Street Scene

It constantly surprises me how hard it is to take pictures of the most ordinary things that surround us. This picture is fairly representative of a typical intersection here in Tokyo. The thing is, I can barely take credit for the typicality it represents, because the photo itself was hardly intentional. I already had my camera out and was taking a picture of something else when I snapped a quick shot of the intersection as a whole. It was only when I loaded it onto my computer that I noticed what a typical scene it represented.

Two things to note:

1. The surgical masks. Everyone's wearing them, even some gaijin I walked by in my neighborhood last night!

2. The fire escapes. Notice how they're used as expressive decorative elements. I love that feature of architectural design here in Tokyo. You could do an interesting series of photographs detailing the variety of ways in which fire escapes are often the most prominent decorative elements on medium sized buildings here.