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1 in 13 million – The only native Japanese Imam in Tokyo (UPDATED)


*Updated with NEW film documentary for VICE Japan – see end of post*

Population of Japan – 127,000,000
Population of Tokyo – 13,000,000
No. of Muslims in Japan (estimate) – 100,000
No. of Japanese Muslims (estimate) – 10,000
No. who converted to Islam NOT for marriage(estimate) – 2 or 300
No. of Japanese Imam’s in Japan – 5
No. of Japanese Imam’s in Tokyo – 1

Abdullah Taqy is the only Japanese Imam in Tokyo.

A chance meeting with a foreign Muslim 12 years ago in Tokyo’s Shibuya district and a life spent studying various religions led him to convert to Islam 3½ years ago.
He completed the Hajj, the worlds largest annual religious pilgrimage, to Mecca in Saudi Arabia 2½ years ago at the invitation of the Saudi Arabian government.
Shortly after, a meeting with the man who started him down his path to Islam 12 years previously led him to becoming the Imam at a small mosque in the Kabukicho area of Tokyo.

His day job for the past 20 years has been as a tattooist and body piercer.

He is soft-spoken and exudes a calmness and friendliness that one cannot help being affected by.

He is truly, 1 in 13 million.

Photography, Audio & Editing – Uchujin/Adrian Storey

I am very pleased to announce that some of the photographs from this photofilm and the photofilm itself are available for licencing through Redux Pictures – HERE

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This project is the culmination of several months of work and religious freedom is a topic I personally feel very strongly about.
The news last year of the Tokyo Police’s leaking of data on to the internet about Muslim residents (Japantimes link) and Abdullah’s own questioning by the Police because of his religion highlight that Muslims all over the world face persecution and prejudice.
Part of my intention in making this photofilm/documentary was to highlight the absurdity of these prejudices.

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*UPDATE December 2012*

I am pleased to add my new short film documentary about Abdullah, shot in Novemeber 2012 for VICE Japan almost 2 years after the original film was made.
I hope you enjoy it!!!

Shinjuku To Harajuku On The Yamanote Line

A little video I’d forgotten about from when I borrowed the 15mm from Mr Eiichi Scart.
Mr Ellis reminded me of it on the very same route home after GnT’s last night, so here it is.
(Also wanted to post a little something as I’ve been away filming in Berlin for a few weeks and haven’t had time to edit any of that stuff yet, but it’s coming. Watch this space.)

Music by me from long,long ago

Reversible

Just a little bit of fun.

Was out with Sean ‘Motionid’ Wood and Jon ‘It’ll All End In Tears’ Ellis a few weeks ago and filmed this test shot for something else I’m working on. Could have used a shoulder rig and being less drunk, but……
Ended up kinda fun (despite the rain on the lens causing a strange reflection in the bottom of the frame) so I thought I’d put it up here.

Principal actor is Mr. Motionid (him of self service beer machine fame;-) and there’s even a cameo by Mr. It’ll All End In Tears (around the 47 second mark).
Music is Joy Orbison “The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Blow”

A Dark Wind Blows

A short film I made, shot in Tokyo.
Essentially a love story, albeit a dark one.

Not much more to say, except that the excellent music is by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, a track taken from their excellent  F♯A♯∞ album from 1997. The track is titled “Dead flag blues” and the film contains about half of its full 6 minutes of gloriousness.
The vocal is from an unfinished screenplay by guitarist Efrim Menuck.

As a side note it turns out this is the 100th post on the blog!

I Need Someone Much More Serious

A few weeks ago my Flickr pro account (donated 2 years ago by the lovely motionid) expired.

It was a 2 year period that saw my photography progress dramatically thanks to meeting some amazing photographers and being part of some very interesting and informative groups, there were even 3 or 4 pictures that made it to number 1 in explore, the holy grail of flickr nerds everywhere, and Flickr itself introduced me to almost everyone I call a friend now in this big crazy city.
The love affair is officially over though (not just with flickr), I’ve moved on and won’t be renewing my pro account, in fact I’ll be slowly deleting my Flickr stream.
I am much more interested in posting here on my blog, where I can brand my content in a much more personal way.

So the video above is a look back at one of the most photographically productive periods of my life and a requiem for those heady days of flickr obsession.
It’s quite long,  as it contains 489 images, but it’s quite a fun ride if you have a spare 4 minutes.
(The astute among you may notice some images that you don’t recognise from my stream, this is because the video contains all the images I’ve ever posted to flickr including ones I deleted or ones that were private)
The music is by The Red House Painters (now sadly defunct) the track is Mistress (guitar version) and is used without permission, and that is a whole other conversation.

Nairobi – Part 1 – Some of them are drinking wine

“Lavosti and Oren, Impromtu jam, Nairobi April 2010”

A few days after arriving in Nairobi, the house where I was staying, legendary for its parties, was host to the birthday party for a very lovely man called Sam Hopkins (Founder of SlumTV).
He turned out to be a ‘diamond geezer’ and was one of the people who made my Kenya trip so memorable.

The outside patio at the party turned into a jamming area with many musicians from many countries,
(Israel, Kenya, Italy and Germany to name but 4)
Yours truly played his thighs as bongos for so long that my thighs looked like this in the morning:-

But I digress, When I heard the guy in the video, Lavosti from the hip-hop collective Ukooflani, start blowing into his hands and this amazing trumpet like sound issuing forth, I stopped slapping my thighs and ran and got my camera…..
The video above is all I managed to capture before the song ended , more beer arrived and the jam moved on.

Lavosti is backed on guitar by Oren from the band Jahcoozi (there will more of them in later blog posts).
I couldn’t believe he was making that amazing noise with just his hands, and boy could he sing too.
He tried to show me how to do it, but I was embarassingly bad and probably a little too far gone to try by then.

I hope you are as amazed by this little slice of musical genius as I was.