Have you ever taken a random travel photograph and then learning later that the picture was one of some significance? Well, I have. It was one of those rare accidental moments. When I am on holiday, I tend to be busily snapping pictures here and there without realising that right before me could be some iconic landmark.
So it was in Osaka in late October 2018. The time was already past six o'clock. Day was already dark. I stood in Dotonbori and peered across the Ebisu Bridge to the other side. Hordes of people were jampacked crossing the bridge and were either coming or going in the direction of the Shinsaibashi shopping mall. Good opportunity for a picture - or pictures - with my zoom lens, I thought, so I walked across the bridge and simply started shooting with my camera. Finally, satisfied, I backtracked to the Starbucks outlet to join my wife. Until I arrived home, I was totally clueless about what I had photographed.
Until one day, I was reading a story about Osaka's Dotonbori district and this picture popped up, describing it as the Glico running man. I remembered that among my travel photos were two of this very same advertisement horde. This forced me to look further into this Glico signboard and finally, I've come to know that this was a famous landmark in Osaka. It had been at this same spot since 1935. The design is so artificial, so outdated and so out-of-place when compared with the modern advertisements around Dotonbori but somehow, the signboard remains an important feature of the city. Visitors come here on purpose every day to take its picture or use it as a backdrop. As for me, I was contentedly snapping away happily at random without knowledge of the Glico man's significance and yet managed to include a picture of the advertisement among my images at the end of the day.
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