June « 2009 «

June 30, 2009

Nobuyoshi Araki: Tokyo Aruki (Tokyo Walks)

Filed under: Photography,books,japan,magazines,reviews — John @ 7:24 pm

The other night I picked up Araki’s latest book, Tokyo Aruki. It’s comes in at a modest 160 pages printed at the extremely portable A5 size. Initially I was taken in by the reasonable asking price, but after a couple go-throughs it is plain to see that portability was a major factor in this book’s construction.

Each section is divided between various locations throughout Tokyo, taken over a full year between July 2007 to July 2008. Similar to Aget’s Paris, Tokyo is Araki’s town.
It is worth stepping back for a moment to reiterate that “Tokyo” as you might think is not technically a city in the way that Omaha is considered to be. That said, he kept to a handful of the 23 wards for the photographs which ended up in this book. To be more casually precise(!), the photographic sections have been separated into areas often determined by the name of the local train station.

Interspersed through the pages are brief essays on thoughts of his personal meanings for each area. Some of the sections feature the appearance of young women who have flocked (his words) to him to be photographed. I say that jokingly, but I have with my own eyes seen a young woman break down into tears simply upon seeing the man step out of a room. So “flock” it is.

Often his writing goes further into technique and thoughts on the human condition in Tokyo which in Japanese can sound sweet, but putting it into English they are a little corny. For good measure it seems that the editor felt it best to highlight some of the cornier statements in blue or pink and slap them down on top of a perfectly fine photograph. There are unexpected visual treats here, but one has to look a little harder than usual to find them. For those who only know the more Internationally Marketable and Nude side of Araki’s work, the fact that he is a street photographer on par with (and often surpassing) the “greats” might come as a surprise. Due to limitations in printing quality and text placement this book isn’t the greatest vehicle to find this out, but at the price it is a good beginning chance to explore this recent softer side of his work.

If you are at all ever out with a camera in Tokyo you’ll no doubt recognize the locations of a good half of the pictures, or in some cases, have already photographed there yourself.

Earlier I mentioned that portability is an essential aspect to this book’s creation. It wasn’t until looking at the last three pages when the realization that Tokyo Aruki is in part, a Tokyo walk-a-bout type travel companion. It’s “Araki does Tokyo” in a way that is different from his other previous (and often more literal) experiences.

Since it is indeed a travel guide, each section of the book has it’s very own precise map, complete with Araki’s very route highlighted for those who might want to hit up the same spots. If the recent press is of any indication, Tokyo Camera walks seemed to have exploded in popularity over the past few years and I’m assuming that due to it’s extremely approachable content matter, this book has several print runs ahead of it.

And for those who might be interested in the cameras which he used, a few pages before the maps are devoted to an informative essay about his camera choice (two Mamiya 7IIs) and (naturally) pictures of Araki on the street working.

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June 24, 2009

Pechakucha Night Tokyo Vol. 63

Filed under: Photography,japan — John @ 11:01 pm

For the fifth time ever I went to Roppongi, and on this fifth time for the first time I checked out Pechakucha Night Tokyo. By “Checked Out”, I mean “Presented Work”.

In case you are not familiar with the Pechakucha / ぺちゃくちゃ concept (and I have only been since a couple of weeks ago) 20 presenters are allowed to show 20 slides for 20 seconds each. This gives each person six minutes and forty seconds to let a room full of people in on something they’ve done.

I showed 20 pictures from my Gaijin Like Me series to a far better reception than I had expected. Presenting was something I was encouraged to try by several supportive co-workers and friends- honestly it put me outside my comfort zone, which was 99% of why I did it. Now I know I can do something like this. I’ve had photographs published, had them mounted and exhibited on walls in several different venues, put hundreds up on the internet- and now I can say I tried Pechakucha Night. I suggest to anyone with the desire to try to go and do it.

Keep going, keep sharing, and keep learning.

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Filed under: Photography,japan — John @ 6:54 am

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June 20, 2009

Yasuhisa Toyohara X Osamu Kanemura gallery talk

Filed under: Photography,exhibitions,japan — John @ 10:33 am

This week Third District Gallery, a small exhibition space in Shinjuku, was host to a gallery talk for Yasuhisa Toyohara’s current exhibition Street Photographs. Like the other gallery talks where one must make a reservation to attend, this was less of an actual lecture, and more of a conversation between two photographers. Toyohara was joined by Osamu Kanemura and the two together made for a lively and often humorous evening. The term “SNAP” was the word which both photographers referred to the style of the work on the walls. In terms of the Japanese language and photo scene, “snap” has been appropriated and shortened from “Snapshot Aesthetic” which for as ignorant and misleading as the term is, it is equally as ingrained into the English language so we’ll just have to go with it.

Both speakers agreed (lamented) that the Snap Era has long ended, and that for the most part photographic critics and curators won’t acknowledge contemporary street photography as something deserving a presence in a modern museum. Kanemura related an experience where he was told by a director that they wouldn’t take the photographs because it was an Art Museum. The fact that photographs do indeed appear often in the modern art scene was stated, but that those works are not “Useless” in the sense that street photographs are. “Useless photos” then became a bit of a running gag throughout the discussion when referring to street photography, including an extended riff on the creation of a plan to support endangered species in Africa as means of an excuse to sell prints, or at the very least, to get people to by them.

While the conversation spent most of it’s time centered on Japanese photography and photographers, a few times during the evening Kanemura took jabs at the current German photography for being too still and “boring”. There was sentiment that one of the charms of photographing on the street was the fact that you don’t have to have this set concept for what your work will look like, so you don’t have to go about creating what you have in mind. The subject matter flows towards you.

Both men talked about the difficulties that street photographers face, and the fact that incidents of being confronted increased more in the past few years compared to back in the 1990s. Toyohara mentioned repeated trips to the police box at Enoshima beach- and joked that the view there was a long ways off from Kanemura’s experiences with MOMA. Winogrand’s name was brought up several times, and Toyohara stated that he thought it was odd that Winogrand has only had a handful of books published considering the amount of photographs he took. One can only imagine what kind of incredibly powerful books could be created if a Japanese editor was able to have access to Winogrand’s archive.

Despite the fact that the collapsible camping stool I sat on was too small, the evening was thoroughly enjoyable and really, I can’t imagine a better Friday night- sitting in a gallery surrounded by photography while listening to two very intelligent and witty photographers discuss their craft.

My only regret is that I didn’t ask Kurata Seiji to sign a copy of FLASH UP before he left, but a bigger regret would be that I doubt I’ll ever be able to afford that book.