Japan in the 1970s was heaven for a photographer. Far from the Western cliche about the Japanese being inscrutable, much of daily life could not have been more scrutable. Tokyo was, and to some extent still is, a visual feast of shop signs, billboards, TV images, movie posters, advertisements in print and neon light, shops, bars, restaurants and hotels disguised, like theatrical sets, in a pastiche of styles from all over the world.
And that was just the commercial facades. There was also something highly expressive about the way people moved, interacted and went about their lives. The requirements of etiquette and social rules, depending on age, social rank and gender, demanded of all Japanese, made human behavior appear almost theatrical -- the performance of social roles that was intricate and at the same time demonstrative. The surface matters in Japanese culture.
