Last Updated on 06/29/2014 by Julius Motal
All photographs shot by and used with permission from Miho Aikawa.
A great photo series can be predicated on even the simplest idea. Take Dinner in NY, a photo series by Japanese photographer Miho Aikawa, which shows how the last meal of the day can take on so many different forms. A city as dense and varied as New York allows for this kind of mix.
“Growing up, both of my parents had full-time jobs and it was difficult for us to spend time together,” Aikawa said of the aspect of her youth that, in part, inspired this project.
To Aikawa, and probably many others, dinner is more than just the food in front of you. It’s what you do during that time, too, that factors into the meal, whether it’s watching television, caring for your children or catching up on emails. The meals are not necessarily at home either. In one of the images, a man is eating on his train ride home to Pleasantville, NY.
At its core, Dinner in NY offers us slices of life.
“It’s true to say that my photo project has a voyeuristic perspective and it’s one of the key elements. Dinner time is usually private and shows a part of the person’s life style,” Aikawa said.
There is as much truth in Aikawa’s project as there is in street photography. Granted, there’s a good deal of dialogue that goes on before and during the shoot, but the images look and feel genuine. And it is in these moments that we can truly get to know her subjects without meeting them.
Aikawa made a similar photo series in her native Japan titled Dinner in Tokyo, which offered far fewer chances for diversity than New York, and she found people were, on average, shier than those in NYC.
See more photos from the series after the jump, and check out Dinner in Tokyo on Miho’s website.