Street photographer Seiji Kurata became famous for his after-hours portraits of Japanese gangsters, cabaret dancers and nightclub hostesses. See more here:
In 2013, Seiji recalled an encounter with the yakuza that resulted in his iconic photograph: “The Tattooed Man”. “The town is bright with streetlights, pubs, game centres, cafes, restaurants, arrays of neon and spotlights. Two tall men call out to me. They look and act like playboys,” he writes. “There are no nice landscapes, no skylines or good scenery, and we decide to make the top of a building our studio.
Seiji captured these subjects intimately, finding glimmers of humanity in everyone from the yakuza andto the ultra-right wingers at Shibuya’s Meiji Jingu shrine. He would often take the photographs in gangsters' homes, with cats playing in the background and gilded mirrors softening an otherwise aggressive image. Or he’d wait until two sex workers began laughing hysterically before clicking his camera.
“My life's journey began in this city, if perhaps a little late,” he said about his decision to leave the small thermostat factory in which he worked to pursue a career inat the age of 30. “One day when I was not so young, at a time when my sense of reality had been progressively diluted and anaesthetised, I fell into a state in which my reality was dilapidated and ruin inevitable. At the time, I was earnestly seeking the medium for my expression, but had not yet found the answer.
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