Nearly seven million people flood into central Tokyo every day, packed shoulder-to-shoulder in rattling train cars as they navigate one of the world's busiest transit systems. While much of the world has embraced remote work since the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan has largely maintained its culture of long office hours and face-to-face workplace interactions, with even government discussions about a four-day work week failing to shift established norms.
Photographer Prissilya Junewin has become fascinated by the beauty hidden within the mundane reality of these daily commutes during her frequent visits to Japan. Her new photo series "Everyday Commute" captures the in-between hours when Tokyo's workers drift through the suburbs before racing beneath the city to reach their final destinations. The project resonates personally with Junewin, who transformed her own frustrating hour-long trips to Berlin's darkroom into something more meaningful through careful observation.
"While stuck in the U-Bahn, I tend to observe the people around me – their habits and facial expressions, the small gestures between passengers," Junewin explains. "The time has become quite precious to me." This personal transformation sparked her curiosity about other commuters and whether they too had learned to find meaning in these liminal spaces or were simply enduring the daily grind.
Tokyo presented the perfect laboratory for exploring these questions, given its reputation for being busy, hectic, and packed with commuters. Working with SMN Casting agency, Junewin connected with five Tokyo workers – a barista, a model, a chef, an accountant, and a waitress – and accompanied them on their daily journeys to and from work. She was particularly curious about the cultural and societal differences she might observe.
Respecting Japanese commuter etiquette, where people generally refrain from talking or making noise that could disturb others seeking quiet after exhausting days, Junewin silently documented her subjects' routines. "It was so important to me to actually capture them on their real, everyday routes," she notes. The 28-image series shows commuters in their authentic environments rather than staged scenarios.
Through conversations with her subjects, a clear pattern emerged: a deep longing for nature. "The reality is that it's pretty hard to survive here, not only financially, but mentally as everything moves on so incredibly fast," Junewin observes. "You're forced to move with the city's pace, with nowhere to go because of your strict work schedule." This tension is exemplified by Ryukun, a 27-year-old accountant captured reading during his commute, who describes his biggest challenge as "achieving a good work-life balance."
"In an ideal world, I'd have good access to the city for work but also be surrounded by nature, since that's what gives me a sense of fulfillment," Ryukun explains. Similarly, Mei, a 24-year-old waitress, described her commute as a time to clear her head, adding that she recently feels "a stronger need to be in touch with the kind of energy that comes from the earth."
To reflect her subjects' yearning for nature, Junewin interspersed their portraits with photographs of rivers, trees, and mountains taken during her travels across Japan. This contrast highlights a universal theme affecting young people carving out lives in the world's busiest cities while quietly longing for something slower, greener, and freer. The juxtaposition became Junewin's way of holding two realities in the same frame – Tokyo's fluorescent rush against nature's quiet persistence.
One particular journey with Ryukun left the strongest impression on the photographer. "It was around 8pm that we met him at his office and headed towards his home in Shibuya – one of the busiest stations in the whole city," she recalls. "There were no empty seats on the train, so he was just standing there with his book – completely switched off from reality. The atmosphere was melancholic and there was so much to read into in the carriage."
That moment crystallized what the project represented: finding private rituals of pause within the city's relentless rhythm. By weaving together these intimate moments with images of nature, Junewin creates a narrative that extends beyond Tokyo to address a broader generational experience. The project also transformed her own perspective, making "the pros and cons of life in a city vs the countryside clearer" and helping her appreciate "the randomly scattered green spots in Berlin more."
Junewin hopes viewers will take away a simple but powerful message from her work: "Be more conscious of your needs and your surroundings. And definitely daydream." The series ultimately presents commuting not just as a necessary evil of urban life, but as a space for reflection, observation, and quiet contemplation amid the chaos of modern city living.
