Meido, Akihabara, Tokyo, summer 2014.

In July 2014, I discovered Tokyo for the first time and I was overwhelmed by the city atmosphere. When I came back I went trough my photos but ended up disappointed by the result. I couldn’t reproduce that feeling you get when you are in the middle of the street, of the chaos with all those people around you, the noise, the electricity. This overwhelming atmosphere wasn’t there anymore.

Two years later, thinking about how Japanese anime are colorised, I remembered the amazing work of Zhang Bin aka Benjamin who is a an manhua artist and illustrator. Inspired by his work, I decided to give it another try by editing the colours of my photos in order to get more atmosphere and emotions from them.

Glow is a collection of photographs from various cities captured by night, where the colours make you feel the variables you can’t see on a picture, such as temperature, noise, motion. Glow is what you remember instead of what you’ve seen.

This photograph is part of the original series which is composed of the very first images at the origin of the Glow collection.

Limited edition available in 3 sizes.
Printed, numbered and signed by Xavier Portela.