And so Bruno Quinquet has made the documenting of this uniquely Japanese archetype the subject of his acclaimed series "The Salaryman Project".
Above: Sensoji Buddhist temple from The Salaryman Project
Bruno was born in France, a country whose privacy laws prohibit taking photographs on the streets without the permission of the people in the photographs. In Japan he was faced with a similar constraint and so rather than ignoring this restriction he has made the ensuing tensions between the public and private spaces central to his work.
Working with this contradiction Bruno made it a rule of the project to never to identify the subject. His beautiful use of visual devices to obscure faces; smoke, steamy windows, street furniture and so forth, offer a tantalising glimpse of the various salarymen but the absence of a particular identity results in isolating them within their surroundings and so emphasising their apparent alienation from Japanese society.
Above: Tokyo Station from The Salaryman Project
Bruno is reluctant to describe himself as either a street or documentary photographer, preferring to locate his work somewhere in between, but his approach is firmly set within the street genre. It is with his camera that he explores the city and it is the desire to be surprised by what he can capture with it that motivates him.
It is in the process of editing that he finds out how his images can work together. While never intending to shoot a picture in order for it match to another, his interest in images speaking visually to each other is most apparent when you see the book. The smoke of the buddist temple, hiding the face of salaryman is echoed and referenced in the opposite image, where the condensation on the window, similar in colour and its way of obscuring the man on the train have a lovely resonance when viewed side by side.
Conceived as just a year's project, "The Salaryman" has become an obsession for Bruno and after three years he is still going out onto the street of Tokyo exploring the city and its inhabitants.
These two prints have been kindly donated by Bruno and the net proceeds of the sale of the prints will go in support of 1000 Words.