Are, Bure, Boke: Meg Hewitt's "Tokyo is Yours"

Channeling the photographers of the Provoke-era, Sydney-based photographer Meg Hewitt captures the hustle and bustle of the people of Tokyo. The famous aesthetic continues to be alive in contemporary Japan.

We, humans, are a danger to the world, but also a danger to ourselves. "Tokyo is Yours" is Meg's culmination of all thing she learned living in the Japanese capital, set post the Great East Earthquake of 2011. The images, all in high contrast black-and-white, explore the human drama and humanity's relationships with things, memories, places, animals, and objects. True to the 60's Provoke aesthetic, grain and texture are prominent features.

The images were self-produced and developed by Meg herself, having no budget for color film and other expenses, she turned her own bathroom into her darkroom.

Meg's images are certainly following a pattern that many have seen before, such is with Daido Moriyama's photography, but Meg's grit is accompanied by a dash of whimsy, surrealism, film noir and manga as inspirations.

"Everything inanimate is very animated. There are bird tweeting noises on train platforms, toilets speak to you and play waterfall sounds, people have robots as friends.
When you show something to someone they make a lot of effort to engage, if you watch people exchanging business cards, it is done with two hands and each person looks carefully at both sides of the card before putting it away. You have to slow down and really engage to be polite."

Watch out for our interview with Meg soon. In the meantime, visit her website, Facebook and Instagram for more of her works.

written by Ciel Hernandez on 2017-10-28 #people #black-and-white-photography #provoke #meg-hewitt