Ritual and Routine. Questions for Jay Vee on finding home abroad.
A snapshot of revered Cafe de l’ambre, a popular “kissaten” (Japanese coffee shop/tearoom) in Ginza, where baristas use cloth filters for their pour-over coffee.
San Diego photographer Jay Vee approaches his work as “a casual observer who’s constantly learning.”
Born and raised in the South Bay, his photographic style is naturalistic and curious, whether at home or abroad — a draw towards the spiritually mundane, an admiration for daily ritual and routine.
From his travels in Japan, he paints daily life in the land of the rising sun as if he’s known the place his entire life. More traveler than tourist, his work acts as a “reminder to make the most out of the time you have left on this planet” by finding similarities, both here and elsewhere.
Safelight: From your adventures abroad, I've interpreted a fondness for daily ritual and routine in your photography. A woman in a kimono cleaning a table after giving a tea ceremony to guests, workers in Arashiyama Bamboo Grove building bamboo fences. Why are you drawn to this?
Jay: The image of a woman working all by herself after giving a tea ceremony to guests while still wearing her kimono was a human moment that felt overlooked to me. There was something demystifying about it because it was essentially just a photograph of someone in the middle of work. My fondness for daily ritual and routine was also a response to all the same travel-related content that kept popping up on my Instagram feed including the videos and photos of influencers wearing flowy outfits and running around in tourist destinations or reels like “10 Things To Do (or 10 Things I Regret Not Doing) in *insert country’s name.*” Seeing those made me want to take a different approach to documenting my travels.
Safelight: As Anthony Bourdain once said, "be a traveler, not a tourist." Do you consider yourself a traveler or a tourist? Tell me more about your philosophy on immersing yourself into other countries.
Jay: Rest in peace, Bourdain. For a while, I’ve considered myself to be more of a traveler, but it really doesn’t matter either way as long as you’re curious, enjoying yourself and being kind to the people around you. It’s easy to forget that when you’re traveling, you’re representing the home where you came from. Immersing yourself in a different country is like being a guest in someone else’s house. You respect the space while learning something new, even if you’ll experience some culture shocks along the way (i.e. Christmas being celebrated as early as September in the Philippines). And the older you get, the more you realize how small and isolated your home can feel. Even though traveling doesn’t fix everything, there’s so much you can learn from the people you meet and the places you discover.
Safelight: Your travels in Japan remind me of the cinematography in Wong Kar-wai's films. How does cinema inspire you and the way in which you view the world through your lens?
Jay: Thanks so much! I did reference his films, especially for the first photoshoot I did in Tokyo. I studied film production back in college and have also been drawn to the films of Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick and Andrei Tarkovsky as well as the slice-of-life films of Richard Linklater, Wim Wenders and Yasujiro Ozu. There’s a stillness and a feeling of longing in some of those directors’ movies, which heavily influenced my work and the nostalgia element of film photography just adds another layer to that feeling.
Safelight: How has your international photography influenced your approach to photography in San Diego?
Jay: Occasionally, I try to photograph places that are underrepresented in my hometown. Lately, I’ve been testing out special film rolls exclusively from other countries like Japan and my experience doing photoshoots there have made me more confident in doing photoshoots with different models here. I’m still trying to find my own approach when it comes to photographing my hometown because there are so many amazing local photographers who’ve captured life in San Diego very beautifully.
Hiking to the mountain peak at Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto. Shot on Cinestill 800t.
