Will Robb Photography

It’s been a very busy few days since I got back from Seoul. I’ve had three jobs on for Whisky Magazine and Whiksy Magazine Japan covering some articles and an event. Wednesday was tiring, had to get up at 5.45am to do some final packing, get the train to the airport in Seoul and get back to Japan. My plane back from Seoul arrived at about 1.30pm Wednesday, I cleared immigration and customs and was home by 4.30pm and I had to be out the door at 5.15 to go and do the first of a series of jobs. David Croll of Whisky mag Japan had asked me to come out to photograph renowned writer, Dave Broom who had also just arrived in Japan from the UK. It was my first time to meet Dave and he turned out to be a great guy, as well as being extremely good at his job he was a great laugh to boot, so a good fun nights work. He has a big bushy beard and makes for an interesting person to photograph, he was very comfortable in front of the camera and it wasn’t too difficult to get some good shots of him.

David was taking Dave out to deepest darkest Golden Gai with one of his translators and I had to photograph Dave in a couple of bars we visited as well as snapping each establishment to get a bit of a feel for the area. Golden Gai is an area of Shinjuku which despite being only a few small blocks in size is condensed with over 200 bars that are anything but main stream. The bars are all pretty small, most of the clientele are regulars and some even have systems whereby you can only go there if you are introduced by a patron and then pass an interview. Despite this process, the bars aren’t exactly high class, they are small and atmospheric, perhaps not the most hygenic places you could ever drink in, but the atmosphere is unique and you aren’t likely to forget the places in a hurry.

First off we went to a small place called Nabe which the owner (Mrs. Nabe) told us used to be a brothel. There was the main room for clients who would stay for a night on the second floor (which is now the bar) but they also had a back stairs to a third floor for those who fancied a “quicky.” Only the second floor is accessible now, you reach it via an extremely narrow flight of stairs (wouldn’t want to go down them after a few drinks) and then you come out onto a long narrow room, some tables and chairs at one end surrounded by books and records, a cabinet full of “keep bottles” in the middle and then a bar with a few seats at the other end and the owner plonked behind the bar, serving drinks and cooking food for the customers, whilst smoking away. Health and safety rules just don’t apply. We sat there for perhaps an hour, Dave interviewing Mrs. Nabe and taking notes as customers slowly trickled in and the 8 seats surrounding the bar slowly filled.

After that we had a little while until our next appointment, so I used it as an excuse to take some portraits of Dave outside in the streets of Golden Gai. There are so many good spots there, there isn’t much light, so I had to use what was available from signs and lanterns as well as bouncing some flash from my speedlight off some of the lighter walls. One of the portraits with Dave between a red lantern outside a yakitori shop turned out to be my favourite shot of the night.

Then we went into the second and final bar for a few hours. Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of the place, but it was run by comedian and writer Chin Naito who I have to admit, I had never heard of until then. This bar was my favourite, still small, maybe 8 seats at the bar and a table for 3 or 4 next to it, but a friendlier atmosphere and a bit more funky than the previous place. The crowd here was a bit younger, the walls adorned with posters from cult movies and photographs of artists, with a variety of objects including plastic airplanes, Godzilla models and a pigs leg hanging from the ceiling. Dave sat and interviewed Naito san for a couple of hours and he wasn’t at all like any other bar owner I had ever met. mainly because he doesn’t try to make money from the endevour, it’s a place for him to hang out and meet people, he has other sources of income and doesn’t want to make cash from selling booze, he just wants to meet people and enhance the lives of himself and others through human contact. In his bar there is no interview or introduction system, you can just roll up and talk with whoever is there. Think I’ll go back sometime as a customer.