TOKYO TAXI

Between the late 1980s and 2011, artist Alexander James Hamilton documented the diverse network of independent taxi firms operating across Tokyo, each identified by its own illuminated roof signage and distinctive visual language.

Many of these companies operated only a handful of vehicles and have since disappeared through consolidation into the city’s larger transport groups. The works now function both as documentary records and as observations of a rapidly vanishing urban identity.

Photographed handheld throughout the city using a Hasselblad 6×6 camera loaded with analogue transparency film, the series explores the interaction between reflected light, movement and nocturnal atmosphere within the fabric of Tokyo at night.

A selection of the works was published in the monograph Tokyo Taxi by Merrell Publishers in 2012, featuring 200 colour illustrations across 224 pages.

All prints are produced as signed archival editions from the original transparencies and are presented without digital manipulation or post-production.