Photographer Issui Enomoto is based in Yokohama, Japan–a port city just south of Tokyo–where he spends his nights working as a taxi driver. His cab serves as a quiet, confined studio from which he shoots glimpses of the urban streets while searching for passengers. We first discovered his multiple exposure images in 2014 and were entranced by his systematic layerings of city lights and strangers' figures, all glazed in the glare of his vehicle's windows.
The photographer once described his taxi as a sort of “small submarine” adrift in the “huge sea” of the port city. Now, several years later, he continues to convey an oceanic quality in his work, which seems to swirl with urban movement that's been blurred to a quiet pause. His human subjects are anonymous, almost ghostly passersby, awash in the rippled reflections of their surroundings. Many are shown steeling themselves against the force of rain or wind, or else appear pulled by the perpetually moving tides of the ever-flowing urban current. These figures are emotionally–and often physically–distanced from the lens, subtly suggesting a melancholy separation between the separate individuals who float through a shared environment.
Issui Enomoto: Website | Facebook | Tumblr
via [this isn't happiness]
All images via Issui Enomoto.