Neon alleys after dark
A figure with an umbrella in a red-lit alley, signs reflected on wet pavement, lanterns over small bars.
Narrow streets change character at night. During the day they are just shortcuts; after dark, signs and lanterns turn them into something closer to a stage.
The opening image holds a single figure with an umbrella in an alley washed in red neon. Another shows a lit street reflected on wet pavement, every colour repeated below. A narrow alley of small bars is lined with lanterns, and red izakaya lanterns hang above a silhouette passing by. Neon signs stack up along a Japanese street, one above another.
What makes these frames work is not only the light but the people moving through it, or the hint of them. A silhouette, an umbrella, a passing shape gives scale to the signs and a reason to look.
Wet streets help too. Rain, or the memory of it, doubles the light and fills the dark ground with colour.
Photos: masashiwakui, 4601460, yoonason23, binmassam on Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License. These are not my photographs.
