all photos by Ikue Mio courtesy Sankei
When visitors first come to Japan one of the things that surprises them the most is the abundance of overhead electrical cables. Maybe it’s not evident at first, but as soon as you point your viewfinder to the sky you’ll surely notice the many electrical wires, transmission lines, TV cables, fiber optic lines and every other carrier of modern-day technology. There’s been a concerted effort to go subterranean, especially with the upcoming 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but the costly operation is taking time.
Capturing a region in Tokyo that, in our opinion, must surely have one of the highest concentrations of overhead power lines, is photographer Ikue Mio. In a photo report for the Sankei, Mio headed West from Tokyo to the suburb of Hachioji where there’s a certain shopping street (known as shotengai in Japanese) where cables are so dense they almost obstruct the entire overhead. Check out the report over on the Sankei for more pictures.
June 25, 2015 at 11:02 am
It could be a good wall mural! I mean the first photo 🙂
June 30, 2015 at 2:28 am
Living in a city with underground cabling that went through an earthquake – Christchurch NZ – I can say buried cables will break and take longer to fix than overhead. For many they had to put in temporary overhead cables while they dug up and fixed the underground cables. Remember you have to dig up the whole cable to find all the breaks. May not look pretty but is very functional.