Haruto Hoshi Shines a Spotlight on the Fringes of Society

Hostesses, cross-dressers, disabled people, the homeless… In his series Whistle, Haruto Hoshi invites the reader to take a stroll through the marginalised areas of Japanese megalopolises. From Tokyo to Osaka, the photographer uses a wide-angle lens and flash to capture those on the fringes of society and the world of nightlife, naturally and without embellishment. 

Haruto Hoshi was born in 1970 in the coastal city of Yokohama, not far from Tokyo. Having been fascinated by what lies behind urban life in Japan since his adolescence, and after studying at the Contemporary Photography Research Institute where he learnt the basics of photographic techniques, he now photographs the country’s hidden face.

An underground setting

Considered as the successor to Katsumi Watanabe, who was best known for his photographs taken in Tokyo’s red light district, and Seiji Kurata, Haruto Hoshi reveals a setting not often seen by passing tourists. In his raw photographs, taken mainly in the underground areas of Osaka and in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, the narrow winding streets take on a new aura come nightfall, when they become the playground for hostesses and the clients of hostess bars, and gloomy places to stay for the homeless.

Whistle continues, albeit in colour this time, a project started several years earlier and also compiled in a book in 2007, entitled Luminance of streets, in which the photographer captured the essence of urban back streets using flash, and in black and white. 

Whistle (2017), a book of photographs by Haruto Hoshi, is published by Little Big Man.