[HN Gopher] Technicolor Tokyo
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Technicolor Tokyo
Author : keiferski
Score : 258 points
Date : 2022-03-27 06:41 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (neocha.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (neocha.com)
| presentation wrote:
| Too bad it includes just a 500m radius around Shinjuku station at
| night. Tourist fantasy version of Tokyo.
| keiferski wrote:
| If you like this style and subject matter (Japan at night), I
| also recommend this short film about a taxi driver-turned-
| photographer:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiGEy6YX2tk
|
| And his website:
|
| https://issuienomoto.com
|
| Not quite _cyberpunk_ but in the same aesthetic universe.
| tjpnz wrote:
| What does it for me is the rain and how the neon reflects off the
| puddles. Yes there's some colour manipulation at play here but
| you'll still get a similar vibe walking through Shinjuku on a wet
| night.
| k2enemy wrote:
| His book, TO:KY:OO is incredible. If you enjoyed the photos in
| this article it is worth checking out. It oozes cyberpunk.
| Thaxll wrote:
| What kind of device you need to take such colorful / detailed
| pictures, or is it the post-processing?
| ruairidhwm wrote:
| Most of this will be post-processed. You can get a decent
| camera + lens which helps, as well as a good eye for
| photography. The rest is shooting in RAW and knowing how to use
| Lightroom to get the most out of your photo.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Is shooting in RAW important? Are we just talking about
| PNG/JPG artefacts and general lossiness of lossy compression?
| theIV wrote:
| I saw this article pop up the other day which goes fairly
| deep on the importance of RAW:
| https://lux.camera/understanding-proraw/. This is focused
| on iPhone photography, but there's plenty of other detail
| in there, especially the first half or so.
| EricE wrote:
| Another reason to shoot RAW - you can always reprocess the
| image later without loss. Newer algorithms pop up all the
| time and with RAW you can always start over from scratch.
| With storage being so cheap and computers as powerful as
| they are, theres little reason to not at least shoot
| RAW+JPEG. Having the option of the RAW file available for
| that magic shot is powerful. Even in the article the
| photographer mentions he didn't realize he captured one of
| his favorite photos when it happened - he only discovered
| it later.
| ruairidhwm wrote:
| Yeah a RAW image is like a 'digital negative' so it
| preserves all the data that the sensor in the camera
| captures. A JPEG or similar is processed and compressed so
| the camera makes some decisions and 'bakes in' stylistic
| choices which are much harder to fix in post.
|
| You can read a bit more about it here:
| https://photographylife.com/raw-vs-jpeg
| loansindi wrote:
| Shooting RAW gives you much more freedom to choose how a
| photo will be processed than letting the camera make some
| set of default choices about color rendering so it can spit
| out a JPG.
| EricE wrote:
| Yup - you can even use RAW processing from other sources
| and not just the camera manufacturer. If you only ever
| save JPEGs on camera then you are completely at the mercy
| of the camera manufacturer with no way to every change it
| if you don't care for the way it processed the raw image
| into the JPEG.
| hh3k0 wrote:
| You lose more than quality when not shooting RAW. You are
| going to want all the data captured by the image sensor of
| your camera if you are going to edit your photographs later
| on, it gives you more to work with:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format#Benefits.
| suction wrote:
| Love the colours but would have preferred this style applied to a
| less played out but more interesting visual aesthetic than Tokyo.
| whicks wrote:
| His latest work, After Dark, has a more global focus:
|
| "Following his debut monograph, TO:KY:OO, which captured
| Tokyo's beauty at night, Wong widens his lens from the city
| that became his spiritual and photographic muse to Osaka and
| Kyoto, London and Seoul, Paris and Rome. But he goes still
| further, seeking the rich tapestries of nightlife in the foggy
| historical streets of his hometown Edinburgh, penetrating the
| backstreets of the megacity Chongqing, and seizing the
| verticality of Hong Kong from its rooftops."
|
| - https://vol.co/product/after-dark/
| arez wrote:
| Anyone knows where I could buy a picture/poster from him? They're
| all out-of-stock on his website
| ThinkingGuy wrote:
| I was unable to scroll through that page without hearing
| Vangelis' "Blade Runner" theme music in my head.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| It's mentioned in the article house much the cinematographer of
| Blade Runner influenced the artist
| unfocused wrote:
| Talk about going down the rabbit hole, I ended up being
| interested in the link to Tokyo Jazz joints, unrelated to the
| Technicolor Tokyo: https://neocha.com/magazine/tokyo-jazz-joints/
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Murakami used to own one apparently, I'm not sure why but I'm
| drawn to this location. Perhaps I'll go visit and a cat will
| follow me home or a weird tiny version of the kfc colonel will
| tempt me into a well something.
| have_faith wrote:
| As someone very much into the noir-cyberpunk-always-dark-and-
| rainy aesthetic I don't find the overly saturated and edited
| photos that appealing personally. Especially when lots of purple
| and teal is added and boosted. I find it only highlights the lack
| of real content in the photo (people shot mostly from behind
| holding umbrellas). No snide intended, the photographer is
| obviously talented, just a personal take on subject matter
| choice.
| the_af wrote:
| I get what you mean. Some of the photos are indeed very
| uninspired; the worst in my opinion is the SEGA photo, what
| does it have going for it except heavily retouched colors?
|
| I like some of the others though. The saturation make them feel
| cartoony. Plus neon and umbrellas will always remind me of
| Blade Runner, one of my favorite movies ever.
| aikinai wrote:
| I strongly agree with you. But at least these are some of the
| best examples of this type of photography I've seen. Most just
| crank the pseudo-HDR effect and saturation, maybe add some
| split-toning, and look now it's Bladerunner! But these are
| actually quite good if this is the aesthetic you're going for.
| cush wrote:
| The article mentions that that's what the artist is going for.
| I mean, the article is even titled _Technicolor_ Tokyo.
| robstarck wrote:
| His recent book is more filmic in nature
| https://www.instagram.com/p/CJWaVYLJKrR/
| weekendvampire wrote:
| Can you obviously tell that the photos have been edited? That's
| disappointing - I thought they were all unfiltered and was
| really impressed.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Anything that comes out of a camera is 'edited' in a sense...
| Camera lenses distort images versus what the human eye sees.
| Aperture and shutter settings change the image. Different
| films capture light differently. In-camera processing does
| the same. And that's before 'editing'.
| mrandish wrote:
| > Can you obviously tell that the photos have been edited?
|
| It's incredibly obvious to me. Reality just doesn't look like
| that to the naked eye. Although I'm experienced in
| photography, cinematography and digital imaging, I'm still
| always surprised so many regular viewers don't realize almost
| everything seen in films and TV shows is carefully planned,
| constructed, processed and manipulated to achieve the visual
| looks they see as 'normal'. To be clear, I'm not only talking
| about the more obvious special effects and 'beauty shots'.
| Just making a typical scene from daily life look realistic on
| camera often requires painstaking craftsmanship.
|
| You might enjoy looking at some making-of documentaries
| focused on cinematography. In the area of this urban
| nighttime noir-cyberpunk look, I'd suggest watching the
| behind-the-scenes material included in the Blu-Ray boxed-set
| of Blade Runner. It goes into fascinating detail on how
| cinematographer Jordan Cronenwith pioneered this look. I
| remember seeing Blade Runner in a theater when it first came
| out (I was in high school). I found the visual style to be so
| stunning it inspired my lifelong interest in imaging. Today,
| so much of what we see in movies looks 'Blade-Runner-ish'
| that we hardly notice it but prior to BR _nothing_ looked
| like that in cinema.
| have_faith wrote:
| Surpised others didn't catch your sarcasm. My contention
| isn't that they are edited, or really to the degree that they
| are, it's that they are both highly edited and empty of
| interesting subject matter combined. I think this makes the
| editing stand out more as a negative as opposed to if they
| were this edited and also had highly interesting scenes or
| subjects.
|
| Obviously all extremely subjective but street photography
| already has a running meme of people photographing people's
| backs or from far away.
| grapeskin wrote:
| Japan looks nothing like this. The second pic in the article,
| the entrance to Kabukicho, is about as real as it gets in
| that article. And that area, just a couple blocks wide, is
| where 99% of all "cyberpunk" photos are taken since it's the
| area with the most signs and sex shops.
|
| Most parts of basically every part of Tokyo are quite grey
| and plain. Not even 1% as beautiful as pictures would lead
| you to believe.
|
| Nature and temple photos are the opposite. Even if they're
| edited to the absurd degree these are, they don't capture the
| beauty of the places in real life.
| com2kid wrote:
| > Most parts of basically every part of Tokyo are quite
| grey and plain.
|
| I wouldn't call it plain, plenty of beauty all around.
|
| Definitely not neon colored though. :)
| des429 wrote:
| Well, to each their own. I find Tokyo's greenery and street
| gardens to be the most attractive parts of the city ;-).
| You're right about the lights and it's kind of hard to
| believe people think Tokyo looks like these pictures.
| olingern wrote:
| > Japan looks nothing like this.
|
| As a former resident, I disagree. While they are edited,
| some of them remind of rainy nights in Ogikubo.
|
| If you're interpreting photography as capturing the most
| accurate version of our vision system, then you're going to
| be very disappointed with any photograph.
|
| I really enjoy this photographer's perspective. He captures
| photos as if you're viewing them from the "mind's eye." A+
| work IMO.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| Any photo is going to be a result of choices by the
| photographer. There's no reason to fetishize "unfiltered"
| photos.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| The article mentions that the photographer didn't see himself
| as a photographer for a while because he modifies the photos
| so much.
| kripke wrote:
| They are indeed edited, it is mentioned in the article: "My
| approach to photography is similar to filmmaking, in how they
| take a shot and build off it with color grades and adding
| effects. It's less photography in the traditional sense and
| more of a hybrid. I'm not a photojournalist."
| jwcacces wrote:
| Beautiful photos, but on a webpage designed to show them off, why
| desaturate / lighten them on mouse over?
| onemoresoop wrote:
| It's the artist's choice.
| tanh wrote:
| I had great times playing CS 1.6 with Liam when we were teens.
| I'm glad he found an audience; always seemed like he'd go far in
| life. :-)
| Shinchy wrote:
| I bought his (Liam Wong's) coffee table book and I have to say
| the photography in it is fantastic.
| ekianjo wrote:
| So guy takes photos with a DLSR and pimps the colors so that
| everything becomes oversaturated blue and red and suddenly it's
| art? Color me unimpressed.
| [deleted]
| annowiki wrote:
| I did a double take because I've been using pictures from
| unsplash found by searching "tokyo night"[0] and "night city"[1]
| for wallpapers and they're nearly identical in color, saturation,
| and mood. I just rechecked because I thought maybe someone was
| stealing his work. Nope, they're originals, but amazingly
| similar.
|
| [0]: https://unsplash.com/s/photos/tokyo-night [1]:
| https://unsplash.com/s/photos/night-city
|
| Duncan Lewis's look especially similar, especially this one:
| https://unsplash.com/photos/_iS8zogaLcg
|
| It's nearly identical to the left image from the fourth set from
| the top.
| picklesman wrote:
| Not to be too snarky, but the location itself does a lot of the
| work ;)
|
| To contribute something more positive, I've been following this
| photographer who does great POV videos of these very areas (and
| who also produces/obtains similar images)
|
| Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac6fDzsnhfQ
| tomphoolery wrote:
| I think the first image here is what's used on the Philips Hue
| animated scene for Tokyo. Definitely the same colors.
| grapeskin wrote:
| I will never understand why people make fake pictures of Japan
| like this but absolutely no other country. It seems like Taiwan's
| or Hong Kong's night markets would be a better foundation with
| all their gaudy lighting, but nope. Take a normal grey pic of a
| random side street in Tokyo and blast it with fake neon.
| yadaeno wrote:
| Not only that, most of the pictures in this style come from the
| same street in Shinjuku called Kabukichou.
| robstarck wrote:
| These are his early works from when he was starting out
| ghostDancer wrote:
| If you like the style the subreddit
| https://www.reddit.com/r/neoncities/ while you find lots of
| photos of Japan , there are lot of photos from other places of
| the world and not only Asian cities. Most of them not as good
| as Liam Wong ones though.
| cthalupa wrote:
| You can go on 500px and flickr and find plenty of examples of
| this style of photography for Taiwan, Hong Kong, as well as all
| sorts of western cities.
|
| I'd guess there being more Western exposure to it in Japan is
| due to fairly famous bits of Japanese media embracing the
| cyberpunk/neo-noir aesthetic, a la Akira, Ghost in the Shell,
| etc., as well as Japanese photographers being fairly active on
| the previously mentioned photo sites.
| tjpnz wrote:
| I live in Tokyo and I promise you that none of the side streets
| near me look remotely like these, regardless of whatever
| filters or processing you applied.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Yeah. I imagine people who look at this sort of photography
| would probably recognize Golden Gai if they were dropped into
| the middle of it just because of how many shots like these
| are taken there, heh.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| "Tokyo after midnight, a time that even locals may rarely see."
|
| This line is so ridiculous to me. There's no where in the world
| as lively after midnight as Tokyo.
| distantsounds wrote:
| hardly "technicolor" when you over-saturate all your photos with
| the same tinge of magenta and blue to the point of it not even
| looking real.
|
| but hey, everyone wants to live in a cyberpunk dystopia
| etblg wrote:
| I would argue the style is kind of orthogonal to the style of
| Technicolour film. The light sources are all natural
| environmental lights with a deep dynamic range in dark
| nighttime environments.
|
| Technicolour films (the more modern three-strip ones, because
| these are even farther removed from the original two-strip
| films, where you would only see shades of green and red) in the
| heyday of those films were marked by very bright open stage
| environments blasted by gigantic spot lights illuminating
| everything in front of the camera. The films were so slow
| (we're talking like 10 ISO during the 50s) that you needed to
| blast everything with light or it just would not show up.
| ekianjo wrote:
| especially since it looks nothing like the real colors of
| Tokyo. But hey with Photoshop you can make everything look
| completely over the top.
| bespokedevelopr wrote:
| I love the pictures. They invoke a sense of excitement and
| allure. Highlighting the way the light falls on the different
| architecture and objects around it.
|
| For folks with nothing nice to say, try saying less.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Yeah, I don't get the hate. I don't need art to be realistic or
| complex, I just want it to look pretty.
| tidenly wrote:
| Not hating on the artist in particular here, but at this
| point this style is so derivative and worn out it almost
| reminds me of the "sand filter" americans put on scenes meant
| to take place in mexico or the middle east. Obviously not all
| art needs to portray things as they are, but this doesnt seem
| to offer much of anything of meaning - and if you're just
| looking for the most simple "looks pretty" standard, I'd say
| this type of filter / style almost detracts from the
| photography.
|
| I live in Tokyo and know like 10 different photographers
| pumping out this style.
| rkachowski wrote:
| I find it jarring that there is implied to be something
| noble around withholding criticism of an art style.
| deepspace wrote:
| But that's the whole point of the criticism. It only looks
| "pretty" to very naive eyes. If you are used to the genre,
| these photos are bland at best and downright bad/ugly for the
| most part.
| brankoB wrote:
| This is my favourite genre and I think the photos are quite
| nice.
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