There seems to be a surge of Showa-era themed street photography books in the Japanese Photography sections of bookstores as of late. It’s as if ever couple of months a stack of negatives find their way to a publisher who is fine with adding another good old showa photo book to the shelves. Most of these are heavy on lower quality reproductions laden with additional “memories” text, with the layout being geared less about a moving collection of Pictures than simply a grouping of black and white photos taken around the same time in roughly the same area.
This book, “Tokyo Downtown 1930” by Kineo Kuwabara is an good collection of mostly excellent photographs of parts of Tokyo in the 1930s. The editing sometimes wanders into the realm of “(insert local town name here) in 1940/50/60″ with captions like “This was back before you saw cars on the streets”. But what separates this book from most of the other Tokyo street books is the overall photographic quality of Kuwabara’s work. Even though there are a few filler photos, the “hits” just sing. Too bad most of the best photos had to be printed across the gutter.
Gallery Tosei-sha is currently showing a selection of work by Mikiko Hara. Last night a talk show was held between Hiromi Tsuchida and Hara before an audience of about 30 or 40 people. The conversation ranged from her personal history of photography, to his memories of her as his photo student, to her present role as a wife and mother and photographer. Through the course of the discussion, Tsuchida sensei touched on the themes and their possible meanings in her work, and how he felt excited for the future of female photography in Japan.
After a beautiful slideshow of about 100 of her pictures, the discussion continued on for a little bit more and afterwards the reception began. Mrs. Hara was quite approachable, and she had the camera she uses, a little 1950s era 6×6 Zeiss Ikon folder, to show those who asked to see it.
The gallery also had a few signed copies of her book for sale, one of which is now at home on my bookshelf.
You can read a little more about Hara here.
Photographing is about knowing where to stand, where to point the camera, and when to push he button.
But there are times though when Luck helps. You don’t have to believe me but this was one time when I did not ask for a jump. It just happened. Pictures sometimes just happen.
The photo of UA there in this picture of a wall in my apartment is from an older issue of SWITCH that I picked up at a Bookoff quite a while ago. I got it for the several pages of pictures of UA taken by Nagashima Yurie, completely ignoring the main article about UA’s side project AJICO. Despite 10 years of Japan-time the only Japanese music I like (and know the artist’s names of) would be: Happy End, Suchadarappa (sp?), Ningen Isu (Human Chair), some Kahime Karie (for about 10 minutes), UA, and . . . in high school, Shonen Knife. But that’s about it.
But now after coming across the AJICO album in another Bookoff on Monday, I’m starting to wonder if there might be more great stuff I’m missing out on. I am not going to be a stuck up nerdy Music Guy, since I only have the time and energy for such elitism to be geared toward photography, and not music.
So if any of you all have a suggestion for further Listening, share away. (Ximer? Small Circle of Friends? I think I had some of their stuff on an MD back in the day…)
As long as it is not any kind of J-Pop, or by B’z, Mr. Children, or Bump of Chicken. Those bands are like natto, honest attempts have been made, but it is just not going to be allowed back into my system ever again.
日本人の方も、もし日本の音楽のすすめがあれば、ゼヒ進んでくださいー
