_valerian

One of the fantastic things about living in Japan is the avalibility of fine photo magazines an average bookstore in any suburban Tokyo neighborhood. Last night at the grand opening of a new shopping center I picked up two magazines at the new bookstore there.

Phat Photo 2007 Nov - Dec
I keep saying “I don’t really buy Phat Photo” but actually it kind seems like I did every two months this year. It is an interesting publication, not so much for the actual photos (or the over-all LOOK that it has cornered the market on), but for it’s insight into a particular section of the Japanese contemporary scene. It touches fairly evenly on Art, Commercial, Fashion photography, and Camera Enjoyment. They have an column called “Girls Leica Club”. They debate using a Pentax 67 vs a Mamiya 7. They have ads for Epson printers, Nikon Cameras, and articles by the younger sister of an English teacher I’ve taught with at my school. This particular issue devotes space to Alec Soth and Stephen Shore.

This issue came with a roll of film which as a concept is AMAZING. Can you imagine for a second that any photo/camera magazine in America would include a special roll of film to commemorate 7 years in print, and then name the film “Rainbow 7″ ? ? It came in it’s own custom box (that was inserted into the magazine and held tight by a rubber band).

The magazine promises the film to be very colorful and make reds pink, and blues and greens cute. Non-Scientific Results to be posted here sometime.

Photographica #8
This is hands down THE best photography magazine that is not Aperture. But to compare the two would not be very fair to either. Photographica is more arty than “Commercial Photo” which has been in publication for many decades– with this issue concentrating on “Girls Photo Now” and devoting the first SIXTY EIGHT pages to Ninagawa Mika. A few pages later, previously mentioned photographer Miyuki Motoki and fellow Matsudo city resident Tomoe Murakami are featured with 4 pages each, along with several other up-coming female photographers in Japan.

A later feature in this issue is “I Love Brownie!”, detailing why we should “Let’s buy a medium format camera!”. “Brownie” is the term for 120 film in Japan but spoken it sounds more like “Bu-rou-nee” and it was not until purchasing this very magazine that I realized where “Bu-rou-nee” came from. This is a full color 18 page feature giving one page to each of the medium format cameras currently in production now (Not counting the page for the Plaubel Makina). Then 2 pages to photographers who use these cameras.

This is a 1600 yen magazine, but the past few have come with something interesting enough to warrant the purchase of each issue. “Photographer’s file 2007_2″ is a small booklet in the photo at the top is a collection of 55 photographers- two pages to each with about 3 photos for each person. Below is a quick bio and contact information for each photographer. In addition each photographer states which format they shoot in- Looks like 95% are film only, with the rest using both film and digital. Only a few were exclusively digital.
It goes without saying that this is something to get into. (whoops I said it)

——-

It is a beautiful, BEAUTIFUL, Sunday morning and I have one free day to myself for the next 2 weeks.
If you’ll excuse me– There are a slew of photo galleries to see in Shinjuku and my new Pentax 67II is begging to go out for the day.

(I honestly won’t have an hour free until next Sunday night so I got to do this)

Last night at a bookshop in Matsudo I picked up, flipped through, and promptly went to the register with the latest issue of Phat Photo.
This issue’s theme is “Photographers in their twenties”, and opens with pictures of some brilliant albums Araki made when he was 25 years old. Then, a few pages later (and this is why I slapped down 750 yen at the counter) one is treated to an enviable* and beautiful 8 page spread of the photography of Chicagrapher Brian Ulrich.

I’ve been keeping up with his blog and the whole mid-west photo scene via the internet (and for a little bit while I was in Nebraksa), all the while thinking that this is something that Young Japanese Photographers need to know about. And now they will. The ones who buy the magazine at least. Which is pretty much the same group of folks that “Young Japanese Photographers” as a title encompasses. My Japanese is not near as good as I know it better be by now but overall the article and interview was pretty good. I’d like to say something special about his work, but if you head on over to Brian’s blog you will get a far more comprehensive and articulate overview of his photography and philosophy than I would be able to say here in this entry.

A few pages after Brian’s article are several more pages of other up-and-coming 20-something Japanese photographer’s self portraits which are reinforced with letters to the readers. Letters that are a lot like the self portraits- super slick, laced with Japanese Irony (sitting in the woods with a foam frog hat and a pentax 67) and All The Rage in terms of photo style. Shin Suzuki also got a page in there.

Phat Photo is a tremendously popular photo magazine for younger photographers. If I had to imagine the demographic of it’s audience I’d guess that it serves the young photographer market in the way that nothing in the states comes even close to doing. Look Look is fairly damn close in a few ways, but Phat Photo is really like if the interns at Nylon and Aperture got together, came across a shit-load of money and then made one of the best looking photo magazines out there. It would cover the latest in the contemporary photo world, review cameras and then have a few pages with fashion suggestions as for what to wear from the actual photo shoots all through one’s trendy gallery exhibition reception party. It is not something I go home with regularly, but if you had to get just one make it this issue for Brian’s work.

* I took a load of photos to their office last year in hopes of getting some work published but instead was asked to teach the staff English Conversation ( I said I’d do it for free), and to keep on trying with my pictures. We never did get together for the english learning.

This post has nothing to do with art but it does deal with photography, a cousin of mine, and Britney Spears. I never thought that I’d link to US magazine on this blog but go on and read this.
On a sweetly related note, I just finished Cintra Wilson’s great book A Massive Swelling. I am sure that that dude’s life is just going to be rosy sweet from here on out. He is gonna git his share of the Fame !

Also, congrats to Jenny for making a few bucks off of the deal. I am quite sure the cash she made from selling her prom picture to several rags covered the cost of the dress and then some. Awesome.

The Difference Between

The October 2006 issue of Japan Photo Contest Monthly features 6 photos from the portfolio “The Difference Between”. On sale September 20th. The text is as follows:

I photograph to try to understand how reality is transformed through photography.
This is an investigation concerning what is around me, and how that documentation of Japan in turn affects my conception of this country.
I often wonder, what is it that is between myself and this country, besides my camera?
Rather than answers I am interested in the questions that these photographs ask.

The profile shot was done at the request of the editor who worked with me, and I find enjoyment in trying to look serious (enough) with a bath towel hung up over the bathroom door to separate the brown of the door from the brown of my hair in a 1 inch tall black and white picture. It honestly took several tries to get the shape of my head boxed in by the door just right. The fusebox for my apartment adds to the reality and mystery.