Will Robb Photography

Recently I’ve been photographing a lot of buildings around Tokyo. It’s always good to have stock shots of the same buildings, I often get asked for different shots of the same thing, so it’s good to have a few versions of each image.

Last week when I was out and about I photographed Tokyo Tower. This 333 m high tower is situated in Tokyo’s Roppongi area, but best reached from Kamiyacho station on the Hibiya line. The tower was modeled on the Eiffel Tower and construction was completed in 1958, it’s touted as a major tourist attraction and each time I’ve been to it the parking area next door is full of tour buses. People pour out of them, join the queues and make their way to the observation platform, much like people do at it’s French counterpart. I’ve never been to the observation platform in Tokyo tower, I think the skyline of Tokyo is better seen from somewhere else so you can actually see Tokyo Tower, it’s so different from the rest of the buildings in Tokyo it’s a nice addition to any photograph featuring Tokyo’s cityscape.

It’s good to photograph Tokyo Tower from it’s base on a clear day. There are lots of good angles for wide shots of it from there, or even a nearby park where it’s common to see old people playing gate ball.

For views of it from a higher viewpoint I really like being at the top of Roppongi Hills on the outside observation platform known as the Skydeck. It can get pretty chilly up there, but the view is absolutely brilliant. You can get an amazing 360 degree view of Tokyo from there. It costs about 800 yen to get up there and you can only take one camera unless you’ve got prior permission to take official photographs from there. Either way, I think it’s an excellent place to get an excellent view of the city, on a good day you definitely get your money’s worth.

This week though, I photographed it from the grounds of Zojoji temple which was really nice as well. There is a graveyard out at the back of the temple which is good to frame in a shot of the tower, but I found a shot focusing on a bit of the tower and the the roof of Zojoji temple was an excellent spot to get a really good image of some of the wide contrasts in traditional and modern architecture in Tokyo.