Relentless – A One Shot Story

When in Tokyo, I don’t go to Shibuya unless I have a specific errand to run. Least of the usual ‘things are not what they used to be’ lament, the place never struck me as it deserved more than a cursory glance.

This time, however, I had a specific photographic objective: to capture the Shibuya backdrop, i.e. things and people that keep the place running ‘smoothly’ which are in plain sight but go unnoticed by tourists, residents and passers-by. Crowd management and safety control are two such things.

These are usually managed by private firms whose employees wear uniforms that resemble police uniforms even though they are not sworn law enforcement officers.

When I took this photo, last October, there were major renovation works underway, so it was essential to prevent people from accidentally entering the work area and risking injury. In Shibuya, however, this is an almost impossible task due to the huge number of people passing by. However, the man in the photo did his job relentlessly, without hesitation or losing his cool. Kudos to him!

For this photo I used a Fuji X-T5 with a Fuji XF 18-120 F/4 lens. I find this to be an excellent all-rounder, more so than the XF 16-80 which I also owned. My only complaint is that, with an APS-C sensor and at its maximum nominal aperture of F4, the lens’s depth of field doesn’t sufficiently isolate the subject in the foreground. This is evident in the pole on the left and the lady’s leg under the signalling stick held by the security guard.

This slightly larger depth of field doesn’t ruin the photo, however it does create a certain ‘subliminal’ disturbance in the viewer. A fast prime lens would have worked better in this case, but it would have restricted the shooting options for the rest of the session.

The bottom line is that photography, like life, is all about compromise.