Harajuku in Los Angeles: Portraits in Place (2018-ongoing)

Harajuku in Los Angeles: Portraits in Place is a long-term portrait series celebrating Harajuku-inspired individuals living in Southern California. Focusing on home, work, and play, the series examines the spatial dimensions of self-presentation.

Photographed throughout Greater Los Angeles, these environmental portraits position J-fashion as a lived practice. Domestic settings, studios, workspaces, and city streets operate as extensions of identity, revealing how style is embedded in everyday life.

Set against the layered landscape of Los Angeles, the series traces a cultural translation—how the visual language of Harajuku fashion is adapted and reimagined within a distinctly Southern Californian context. At its core, the work reflects a community that embraces Japanese fashion and kawaii aesthetics as expressions of visibility, belonging, and self-definition.

Series Background: Across the multi-series, I photographed over 80 members of Los Angeles’s Harajuku community and interviewed numerous individuals. Harajuku (原宿), a Tokyo neighborhood, is a center of Japanese youth culture and fashion. Spiriting FRUiTS Magazine (1997-2017)—the Japanese street-style digest tied to Harajuku’s youth—my Harajuku in Los Angeles series chronicles the creative street fashion and spirit of Los Angeles’ J-inspired individuals.

Thank you to the Los Angeles’ Harajuku community and Harajuku DayLA for their support.