Justin Epperson

Wanna get a street level view of Tokyo and its surroundings?

My friend Justin Epperson is someone I’ve known for quite a few years, but it wasn’t for photography. He’s worked many years for the excellent Tokyo-based game localization company 8-4, and he was always the one who was nice enough to invite me to take part in the episodes of the 8-4 PLAY podcast I’ve been on.

But he takes mean photos too.

I knew he had studied photography, but it’s only in the past month or so that he’s decided to spend some time rekindling his love of photography, and he’s been sharing the results on pretty much a daily basis through Twitter, Instagram, and a blog called Gaijin Eye.

What you’ll immediately notice is that he likes to focus on the people of Tokyo, which is not something I think we’re used to seeing – it’s much easier to just take photos of the places, but we tend to shy away from getting too close to the people that make those places interesting.

I’m so happy to see Justin develop this side of his skillset, and I hope you will too.