Shinjuku, Tokyo.
I shot this series from high up in the city, looking straight down into the streets below. There’s something about that angle that turns everything into a grid. Cars become pieces on a board. People feel like NPC’s walking through a level.
The mix of older buildings, rooftop machinery, glowing signage and narrow streets gave me that 90’s top down RPG feeling I’ve had in my head for years. I originally wanted to shoot Tokyo from a helicopter at night, but instead I worked with what I had and leaned into the height of the city itself.
What I realised is you don’t need to exaggerate Tokyo. It already feels like the future layered over the past. From above, it becomes abstract, cinematic and strangely playable at the same time.
