Street Level Japan

On the subject of new Tumblrs, and the challenge of broadcasting Japanese photo culture through the internet:

Japan Exposures has just made an impressive social media push, both on Twitter and Tumblr. Like Aya Takada’s Tumblr, these accounts are essential following to know what’s happening with Japanese photography. I’m blown away by the amount of interesting links passing through JE’s Twitter account, will there ever be an end?

A commenter recently suggested that photoblogs might be a good way for people outside of Japan to get a feel for what’s going on here. Photoblogs and “blog blogs” written by Japanese photographers definitely exist, but I think by and large they are independent and personal (if not almost private) endeavors; not many Japanese photographers have taken to social media.

With that in mind, I want to heartily direct you to Aya Takada’s new Tumblr. Aya is a thoughtful photographer with a deep and personal knowledge of Japanese photography, especially the Shinjuku street scene. She is in tune with online media (she’s an active Twitter user too), and so far she’s posted a number of interesting things I hadn’t seen before. These kinds of sites both need and deserve your attention.