La Vié en Rouge
(Life Through Red Colored Glasses)
Tokyo is one of my favorite cites for street photography. In 2017 I spent a week in Steve Simon's street photography workshop. One day was devoted to shooting the famous Tokyo Fish Market. I was wearing a pair of red "Oakley Holbrook" glasses, one of Oakley’s major product lines actually named after my hometown, Holbrook, Arizona. While walking past a vendor’s booth I spotted a young guy in a bright red jacket with an infectious smile. I had an idea, convince him to pose for a portrait while wearing my glasses, and to make it a little more complicated, because of the language barrier, get it done with hand gestures and facial expressions only. Frankly I was surprised I was able to pull it off. Buoyed by success I decided to make it a project, convince perfect strangers to pose for a street portrait wearing my red Oakley Holbrooks. What started as a lark became a minor obsession that came to a sudden and obviously permanent end when the pandemic changed life as we knew it.
