Tokyo Harbour Elevated Highway Countdown Timer

Tokyo harbour at dusk looks like the future that people in the nineteen sixties thought we would be living in by now, all elevated expressways curving over the water and a skyline of glass and crane and one very strange slanted tower. This is the Harumi area, and the highway sweeps through the frame in a long white ribbon on its concrete legs, and beneath it the water is the colour of pale jade and completely still. In the foreground a dredger or a work barge sits with its cranes folded, dark against all that light, and it is the only thing in the picture that is not trying to impress anybody. The Rainbow Bridge is off to the right, half out of frame. I shot this from a balcony with the window open, and the air smelled faintly of salt and diesel, and a gull was screaming somewhere. The whole scene has that flat teal cast you get when the sun has gone but the sky has not given up, and the city below the highway was just starting to turn its lights on, one window at a time.