Aya Takada was born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1973. She studied photography at Tokyo School of Visual Arts and graduated in 1994. In the late 1990s she produced her own large format art photo magazine, named AREA. She was a member of Galeria Q from 1998 to 2005. During that period she exhibited her photos numerous times, and multiple times under the Fragrance theme. She is currently living in Tokyo. She is also active on Twitter.
On this series, taken in 2005, she comments: The area of Kabuki-cho in Tokyo [an entertainment and red-light district featuring many establishments operated by Japan’s infamous yakuza and the Chinese Triads — Ed.] at night is a dangerous place at night, but at the same time full of mystery and wonder. At any time one can spectacularly observe a great variety of people, of all skin colours and races passing by. When photographing this series I took an Olympus Mju compact camera and turned my eyes towards the deeper Kabuki-cho. A variety of spectacles were unfolding in front of me. After a while I felt I was actually becoming part of what I was photographing. These photographs are the result.
