Tiny Tokyo: The Big City Made Mini

By Ben Thomas

Anyone who has ever set foot in Tokyo or dreamed of seeing its kaleidoscopic wonders will fall in love with this totally unique tour of the beautiful megalopolis. Here are all the spectacular sights of the great big Japanese capital, made tiny enough to fit in a pocket! This teeny tome collects incredible bird's-eye views of the bustling cityscape, all shot using a distinctive photographic technique known as "tilt-shift" that has the effect of seeming to shrink its subjects— making one of the vastest cities in the world look like a miniature model. Epic skyscrapers, crowded city streets, and even sumo wrestling matches resemble tiny plastic toys in this one-of-a-kind little book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronicle Books Digital
• Release date: Mar 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781452130286

Book preview

TINY

TOKYO

Copyright © 2014 by Ben Thomas.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available under ISBN: 978-1-4521-1738-6.

ISBN: 978-1-4521-3028-6 (epub 2)

ISBN: 978-1-4521-3755-1 (epub 3)

Designed by Emily Dubin

Map by Lohnes + Wright

Chronicle Books LLC

680 Second Street

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.chroniclebooks.com

FOR KATHERINE

& ASHER

INTRODUCTION

I’ve been making tilt-shift photographs for the past half-dozen years. Tilt-shift photography is a technique that transforms ordinary images into images that take on the appearance of a miniature or a diorama. The original intended use of a tilt-shift lens mostly rested with architectural photographers using the additional movement of the lens (tilting and shifting) to help correct perspective distortion when shooting an architectural subject.

The technique is used in a number of ways to produce vastly different results. Over the years, a number of photographers have experimented with a tilt-shift lens to produce a variety