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The nighttime beauty of the Yasuyo Building
The Yasuyo Building is the proverbial needle in the haystack. It’s in Shinjuku, where outstanding architecture is hard to find. But if you do find it, photograph it while you can because, in Tokyo, nothing stands forever.
The architect, Nobumichi Akashi, built the Yasuyo in 1969. In this city, that is old, I guess. But even in 2022, it still looks contemporary. It is on my top 10 favorite Tokyo buildings list. Actually, one of the few Shinjuku buildings that join it is Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower. You should check that one out too. It is far more modern, though.
It is attractive. For me, it’s a bunch of Lego blocks. Each floor looks like it is stacked on the one under it. That is what made me photograph it the first time. The design is timeless. But I had never taken pictures of it at night. It was time to change that.
I went there twice for these photos. The first visit was mostly a failure. At that time, it was the New Year holidays, and Aosora Bank wasn’t open. That meant no lights were on the first floor. It looked boring. On that day, I shot the upper floors only.
It’s a pity I didn’t think about that. If I had, I wouldn’t have needed a second trip. Like most people, I like to get everything done in one go. It’s a little annoying doing something twice.
When the city opened again three days later, I photographed the lower floor. That was when I did the long exposure. I used my Fujifilm 10-24 mm.
Doing that gave me a better experience. There were many taxis on the road and people going shopping. Of course, the first-floor lights were on too. With only the glow of the setting sun to provide ambient light, it was pretty dark. That allowed me to use a slow shutter speed to get some good motion blur.
I love the golden nighttime exterior glowing against the surrounding city. It is beautiful. Why more people don’t photograph it baffles me. The Yasuyo is a nighttime beauty.
As I often say, I’ll go back one day. While I’m relatively happy with these photos, I will replace at least one of them. They seem to suffer from sameness about them. When will that happen? I don’t know, but it will. By the way, do you have questions or comments? You can leave those below.
Where is the Yasuyo building?
Address: 3−37−11 Shinjuku, Shinjuku City, Tokyo
Here it is on a Google map:
For more architecture articles, look at:
External related websites:
- Yasuyo Hall (a rental space within Yasuyo Building)
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