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Sid Vicious Imagery in Ameya-Yokocho, Tokyo
東京のアメ横に現れたパンクアイコン「シド・ヴィシャス」
I captured the back of this leather jacket worn by a middle-aged Japanese man while he was shopping at one of the small stalls beneath the railway tracks of Ameya-Yokocho in Ueno, Tokyo. What immediately caught my attention were the vivid neon colors and the unmistakable image of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen rendered across the jacket’s back panel.
I’m not entirely sure why the image felt familiar at first, especially since I was never a devoted punk rock fan. Thinking back, it may trace to a shipmate I had in the early 1980s who was deeply into the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. I likely encountered this image on an album cover or a T-shirt during that time, even if I didn’t consciously register it then.
While researching the origin of the photograph, I learned that it was taken by Steve Emberton, a staff photographer for Record Mirror, a British weekly music newspaper published between 1954 and 1991. Emberton worked extensively during the 1970s, producing images that later appeared in television commercials, album artwork, and publications connected to major artists, including the Rolling Stones.
I’m old enough to recognize many of the musicians Emberton photographed: Cher, Blondie (Debbie Harry), Rod Stewart, Kiss, the Rolling Stones, Joan Jett, Lou Reed, Billy Idol, and, of course, Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. The photograph of Sid and Nancy carries particular weight. Emberton has spoken publicly about the shoot, which took place in an apartment in England just a few months before both of their deaths, lending the image a haunting historical proximity.
Emberton primarily worked in black and white, which raises an obvious question: why does this image appear here in such bold, saturated color? The answer seems to lie with Mosquitohead, a graphic T-shirt brand known for reworking punk-era imagery. Their versions of Sid and Nancy introduced false color treatments that became popular in vintage punk fashion during the 1980s and 1990s, extending the afterlife of these images far beyond their original documentary context.
Ultimately, I’m drawn to this photograph for its color, the smooth, worn texture of the leather jacket, and the quiet confidence of the wearer, his collar turned up in a way that recalls pop-culture archetypes like The Fonz from Happy Days. The image unexpectedly pulled me back to my late teens and my first exposure to the music of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones, often playing in the background of chaotic barracks parties during my days in the Navy. In that sense, the photograph became less about punk itself and more about how certain images resurface decades later, in places and moments I never would have expected.
- Location: Ameya-Yokocho, Taito Ward, Tokyo
- Timestamp: 2026/01/02・13:46
- Fujifilm X100V with 5% diffusion filter
- 23 mm ISO 1000 for 1/125 sec. at ƒ/2
- Astia Soft film simulation
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