_valerian

The Foto Premio catalogue is published by Konica Minolta to commemorate the Foto Premio exhibitions held in the previous year. 2007 had 18 participants, and in the book each of us were alloted 2 pages for photographs and the text from our shows. I enjoyed the liberal use of Helvetica throughout.

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.

whoa. Even though I did not realize that Araki’s expression was different in the reflection for several months after purchasing this magazine, I just now realized that the reflecting text reads “Araki Camera”.

In case you are not already my friend on Facebook (thus not being able to see my profile pictures) and you stay up late at night wondering how I might look posing with my Pentax, find out by doing this:

1.) Go to the bookstore and crack open a May 2008 copy of Nippon Camera.

2.) Open to the special section called “Go for it! Film Based Photography!”

3.) Read the interview with the Fuji Film folks where they say they will never stop producing photographic film, and why they are releasing a 6×7 camera this winter.

4.) Turn the page over and see this:

The gist of the whole section is that Analog provides something that Digital does not, mostly a love of process and experience, and that there are lots of people out there who choose to shoot film because they like it.   A gallery owner on the next page spoke of how if you are going to buy a print (and there are few in Japan who do) it ought to be a good silver print. I agree, and will say that I don’t care who took it– I would not pay more than 5 bucks for a digitally captured inkjet print made by any photographer.
Anyways, a few other Film Shooters are profiled, each one pictured holding a camera of our choice. Getting a haircut after the photo was taken– that is the opposite of how it should have been.