A Week in Tokyo on 35mm and 120 Film

After weeks of traveling with family through Western Japan and Northern Vietnam, we returned to Tokyo for a week of solitude. Of slowness and wandering around our favourite city. Of capturing Tokyo on 35mm and 120 film. Of hunting for film cameras, spending far too much time just enough time scanning through shop windows, display cases, and as-is boxes for gems.

The thrill of the search has always been just as memorable as the journey there. On one occasion, we walked into a quiet mall that seemed to house equal parts massage parlours and tailoring services. And in that quiet mall we spotted our nondescript camera store. While we didn’t make a purchase, the memory of walking through the hallways lined with inviting eyes and salarymen, is not one we’d soon forget.

(For the fellow camera nerds, we were able to take home the following from our trip: a mint Rolleiflex 2.8f and Contax TVSII)

Cherry blossoms aren’t anything new to us, coming from Vancouver. But whenever we’re in Japan, it simply feels right to partake in hanami, in viewing and appreciating the blossoms—as they are, and as they fade. They’re inescapable and perhaps that is part of their magic.

teamLab Borderless was another highlight, like stepping into a living dream. We’d heard and seen many glimpses of this project of course—and generally we tend to shy away from the most popular and extensively visited sites when we can. But being immersed in teamLab’s curation of light and sound and movement—was utterly mesmerizing.

Every time we come back to Tokyo it feels a bit more familiar: more like a version of home but also not, in that we always find new areas to explore, and new ways of seeing. And of course, due to the simple nature of a city: changed and changing. In another life, maybe it would be our home. For now, it’s a place we return to when we want a reminder of how it feels to simply be.

See our past visits to Tokyo on 35mm film here (Revisiting Japan) and here (Tokyo, Kyoto & Kanazawa).

CAMERAS
Hasselblad SWC, Olympus PenD, Contax G2, Rolleiflex 2.8f

FILM STOCKS
Kodak Portra 160 & 400, Ilford HP5, Harman Phoenix 200

DEVELOPMENT
The Lab — Vancouver, BC Canada

FILM SCANNING
Half Frame / 35mm on Fuji Frontier SP500
Medium Format via Camera Scanning