“An exhibition of my work has just opened at a museum in São Paulo, and there are also shows underway in Rome and Beijing. While asking myself how the pictures may look to people in these faraway places, I am also in the middle of producing a voluptuous close-up of a woman's cherry-red lips for a three by three metre billboard on the corner of a building in Nishi-Shinjuku.

Being the red-lip fetishist that I am, I did not think twice before accepting that job, and working on that one frame gave me a boost and made me walk over to the entertainment district west of the railway overpass to shoot the crowds in the streets. As a result this volume is entirely dedicated to the Nishi-Shinjuku neighbourhood. It had been a while since I last walked and shot there, and while these were made with my usual attitude, I particularly wonder how they will be received.”