Tokyo, 2002, at Shibuya Station Possibly 2002 - 2014

Leo Rubinfien took this photograph in 2002, at Shibuya Station in Tokyo, Japan. It’s a scene from the street, a crowd scene. And right there in front of you, the artist, is a young woman, a Japanese woman, looking straight at the lens. She’s standing in a crowd but she is so singular, staring, and styled! I find myself wondering, what was Rubinfien thinking at that moment? Was he drawn to her confidence, her self-assuredness in a sea of faces? The composition is really amazing. The other blurry figures in the frame really bring out her presence. This picture feels like it’s part of an ongoing conversation about beauty, about noticing, and about the power of a single moment to capture something universal about the human experience. You know, all art is just ongoing conversations between people and ideas. It’s like the artist borrows something from another artist, and then adds something, right?