10 years of Tokyo life shot entirely on disposable cameras

Multicolored Youth | Shibuya, Tokyo | 2015
Yorkshire-born photographer Dan Bailey captures the weird, the wonderful and the beautiful of Japan in his book, Disposables.
The disposable has made a come-back – or so it would appear, judging by the work of Dan Bailey. The Yorkshire-born photographer has spent 10 years documenting life in Japan and has released it in a 144-page book fittingly titled, Disposables: “It was the pocketability as well as the resulting raw aesthetic of the format that attracted me,” he says.
The imagery captured in the book – all gutted fish, punk party-goers and Sailor Moon costumes – is idiosyncratic, bold and raw, the format lending itself to the high-energy nature of the country’s capital. It follows almost every move Bailey has taken in the past decade, documenting what he sees and when he sees it.
“People don’t take [disposable cameras] seriously, so you can capture something more intimate. I find something so appealing about that raw snapshot sensibility,” he says. “I hope that this sequence of images provokes viewers to consider elements of Japanese culture they hadn’t before.”

Ideal Woman | Shibuya, Tokyo | 2014

Bloody Fish | Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo | 2013

Plastic Fish | Akasaka, Tokyo | 2011

Punk | Shibuya, Tokyo | 2012

Performers | Shinjuku, Tokyo | 2011

Aizu Tojin Dako | Kitashiobara, Fukushima | 2015

Freedom | Shibuya, Tokyo | 2012

Fukugawa Hachiman Matsuri | Tokyo | 2014

Hot Spring | Fukushima | 2015

Tower in Flames | Mt Gorozan Fukushima | 2015

Multicolored Youth | Shibuya, Tokyo | 2015
