Xavier Lambours - Yakuza

I met Tokutaro Takayama, a yakuza leader in Kyoto in 1993. On the top floor, the elevator doors open on a narrow corridor of about 20m long with an unhappy polar bear at the end. Bodyguards lining the wall, in his office, a portrait gallery of his ancestors' lineage and a bronze statue of Napoleon on his desk. Only one desire for the portrait: The bear! And when you ask a yakuza to smile, he smiles backwards!

Shot on Hasselblad with a 80mm