YOPPARAI TENGOKU (Drunkards' Heaven)

My photographs are a record of the people who have reached their limit and exhausted their strength after the daily grind. Everyone has different burdens, but everyone lives at a frantic pace. People drink with friends as a reward for the hard day’s work and face a new day’s work like warriors. A lot of people struggle through such work situations. I took these pictures with a true feeling of respect for the people in them. I don’t believe the state my subjects are in is shabby in any way. I can feel they have experienced hardships and fatigue to end up like this.