Gallery: Brilliant Photos Capture Tokyo's Electric Colors in Unexpected Places
Yoshinori Mizutani01ym-01
Yoshinori Mizutani's * Tokyo Parrots * series features an unlikely resident of the mega metropolis: tropical birds.
Yoshinori Mizutani02ym-02
The birds are actually ring-nosed parakeets, native to India and Sri Lanka.
Yoshinori Mizutani03ym-06
A major part of Mizutani's shooting approach is the use of synchronized flash. In this series, the effect flattens his frames and adds an eerie shadow to the flapping wings.
Yoshinori Mizutani04ym-03
A number of the birds were apparently brought into Tokyo as pets in the '70s and '80s. They quickly became something of a feral animal, now numbering in the thousands in various parts of Japan.
Yoshinori Mizutani05ym-04
Mizutani first saw the parakeets in a tree some 60 meters from his house. Looking into their history, he became fascinated.
Yoshinori Mizutani06ym-07
I think it bothers the parrots to be photographed in the middle of the night while they’re sleeping," Mizutani says. "But because I’m shooting in pitch black, I have to use flash or else you won’t be able to see.”
Yoshinori Mizutani07ym-08
All of the photos in Tokyo Parrots were taken on the campus of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, where more than a thousand have apparently made homes out of the ginko trees.
Yoshinori Mizutani08ym-09
Mizutani described the experience of seeing the parrots as similar to Hitchcock's *Birds*.
Yoshinori Mizutani09ym-010
The best time to shoot the birds is either at dawn or dusk, when they are leaving or returning to sleep in the trees.
