Naoya
I was hurrying through downtown Toronto between classes when I saw him sitting on a ledge at one of the city’s busiest intersections. As it turned out he was chatting with a coworker. His big hat and sense of style caught my eye immediately. I took a moment to consider location options and came up with the glass and metal doors of a clothing store a few steps away. When I approached him with my project request he said he’d be happy to participate and his coworker said it was fine with her; she was about to return to work anyway. Meet Naoya. He introduced himself as Nick to make things easy for the North American tongue, but I think his Japanese name has a very nice sound to it and I like the authenticity of using his original name.
Naoya is 20 and is studying Industrial Design at the Ontario College of Art and Design University. I told him I wasn’t surprised to learn he was in the arts because of his creative look. He’s from Japan. He has a student job selling retail clothing. He was on his lunch break and had to return to work as soon as the photos were completed. I gave him my contact card and he promised to write. He loved the photos and said he liked the bokeh effect. “Oh, you’re a photographer too?” I asked. He said “Well, I’m around a lot of photographers and know something about it” was his reply. We parted with a warm handshake and he returned to work by entering the doors I had used for the background.
I received a very nice email from Naoya later in the day and as I anticipated, he is a very interesting fellow. I will let him introduce himself in his own words:
"Hi Jeff,
It was great meeting you today as well! I always love random encounters like this.
So my real name is Naoya Takahashi I sometimes go by Nick because it’s easier. I am from Japan and moved here I’m the summer of 2016, I went to international school for 5 years hence I can speak English well. I lived in Japan for a while and then moved to Germany for 3 years.
My interests are design, fashion, cars and motorcycles, music and art. I love being creative and productive, I often have personal projects and recently I’ve been making my own clothes from time to time.
Something I believe in is to stay positive in life, I strongly believe that positivity brings better things in life and the mindset attracts that. I also believe that changes are inevitable and this goes hand in hand with positivity where things in life changes a lot but staying in positive mindset will help to adapt to the changes.
In addition to these mindsets, I have a few phrases or quotes that I keep in mind, “do not ever stop learning, the moment you stop is when you fall behind” a friend of mine at OCAD told me that and it really hit me and I try to live by these words. Another quote is “dream is something you see, set a goal. A goal is what you achieve.” Nowadays a lot people say “oh that’s my dream to do blah blah blah” but I think dreaming is only going to stay as a dream and that means there’s a reality but if I set a goal it’s something I will achieve.
Thank you for taking some pictures of me today, I hope the edits will come out nicely and I wish you the best of luck with your projects!!"
This is my 726th submission to The Human Family Group on Flickr.
You can view more street portraits and stories by visiting The Human Family.
Naoya
I was hurrying through downtown Toronto between classes when I saw him sitting on a ledge at one of the city’s busiest intersections. As it turned out he was chatting with a coworker. His big hat and sense of style caught my eye immediately. I took a moment to consider location options and came up with the glass and metal doors of a clothing store a few steps away. When I approached him with my project request he said he’d be happy to participate and his coworker said it was fine with her; she was about to return to work anyway. Meet Naoya. He introduced himself as Nick to make things easy for the North American tongue, but I think his Japanese name has a very nice sound to it and I like the authenticity of using his original name.
Naoya is 20 and is studying Industrial Design at the Ontario College of Art and Design University. I told him I wasn’t surprised to learn he was in the arts because of his creative look. He’s from Japan. He has a student job selling retail clothing. He was on his lunch break and had to return to work as soon as the photos were completed. I gave him my contact card and he promised to write. He loved the photos and said he liked the bokeh effect. “Oh, you’re a photographer too?” I asked. He said “Well, I’m around a lot of photographers and know something about it” was his reply. We parted with a warm handshake and he returned to work by entering the doors I had used for the background.
I received a very nice email from Naoya later in the day and as I anticipated, he is a very interesting fellow. I will let him introduce himself in his own words:
"Hi Jeff,
It was great meeting you today as well! I always love random encounters like this.
So my real name is Naoya Takahashi I sometimes go by Nick because it’s easier. I am from Japan and moved here I’m the summer of 2016, I went to international school for 5 years hence I can speak English well. I lived in Japan for a while and then moved to Germany for 3 years.
My interests are design, fashion, cars and motorcycles, music and art. I love being creative and productive, I often have personal projects and recently I’ve been making my own clothes from time to time.
Something I believe in is to stay positive in life, I strongly believe that positivity brings better things in life and the mindset attracts that. I also believe that changes are inevitable and this goes hand in hand with positivity where things in life changes a lot but staying in positive mindset will help to adapt to the changes.
In addition to these mindsets, I have a few phrases or quotes that I keep in mind, “do not ever stop learning, the moment you stop is when you fall behind” a friend of mine at OCAD told me that and it really hit me and I try to live by these words. Another quote is “dream is something you see, set a goal. A goal is what you achieve.” Nowadays a lot people say “oh that’s my dream to do blah blah blah” but I think dreaming is only going to stay as a dream and that means there’s a reality but if I set a goal it’s something I will achieve.
Thank you for taking some pictures of me today, I hope the edits will come out nicely and I wish you the best of luck with your projects!!"
This is my 726th submission to The Human Family Group on Flickr.
You can view more street portraits and stories by visiting The Human Family.