Hilltop living in Kamogawa, Japan
Hilltop living in Kamogawa, surfing along the Pacific coast, and exhibitions in Tokyo shape daily life for an American expat who arrived in Japan with little more than his curiosity.

For a recent photo shoot in Tokyo, Edward Levinson climbed onto a skateboard, long gray hair flying as he balanced like a teenager and faced the camera with quiet confidence. It's not the image most people imagine of a man in his 70s — but Levinson's life in Japan has never followed a conventional script.

When he first arrived in Japan in 1979, he was a 26-year-old American hitchhiker working as a gardener in Tokyo, trying to make ends meet. More than four decades later, Edward has cultivated a creative life in Japan as a photographer, author, filmmaker, meditation teacher — and even a senior model.

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