Japan on Film - Osaka Station City, JR大阪駅

These photographs were shot on a warm, rainy evening late in May from a pedestrian bridge near JR Osaka Station. I had lashed an umbrella to my backpack strap which sort of protected the camera from the rain, but as it happens, the one I like best has rain drops on the lens (above). Exposure times were around 30 - 60 seconds, 35mm Kodak Tri-X 400. 

The final shot, below, was taken in the main plaza leading up to the entrance to "Osaka Station City," a massive aggregate of structure and infrastructure centered on the JR Osaka train station, flanked by two fourteen story department stores and packed with least one hotel, innumerable restaurants, a gym, convenience store, offices, a movie theater and public space distributed throughout on a variety of rooftop terraces all the way up to the sixteenth floor. Below there are multiple basement floors with access to two subway stations as well as the Hankyu rail line, the Hankyu department store (across the aforementioned pedestrian bridge), and the Gran Front Osaka mall, accessed via another pedestrian bridge on the other side which extends over a plaza that doubles as a temporary event space (pictured below) with an extensive watercourse winding throughout which cascades down a great array of steps in front of a day-lit underground cafe with outdoor seating. 

As I was framing the shot below at 11:30 on this rainy weekday evening in the deserted plaza I was approached by a security guard who informed me that I was not allowed to use a tripod. I could understand that tripods were a nuisance in a crowded plaza but it was so dark, so late, so rainy, so nearly empty, and he had to walk so far from wherever he was stationed that I could almost not believe what I was hearing. Luckily, I got the shot. And it was time to catch the train anyway. ​​

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