_valerian

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.

1. A Map of the East by Leo Rubinfien
Perusing through the “Japan” section of the foreign book floor at Maruzen is a fine example to see published work of photographs of Japan by people who Just Don’t Get It. I suppose there might be some social responsibility to continue to portray Japan as Kyoto, Shibuya, and Shinjuku in the most trite and Oriental way possible; breaking one’s own expectations about a place by actually going there is the best antidote to such photographic collections. But Rubinfien refuses to play along that way and his work is so much stronger for that fact. Too often people get stuck in the idea that photographs “tell stories” or that photographs suffice as substitutions for actual views or real experiences. This book is of Photographs of actual views, and Pictures of suggested experiences, and there is a difference. In particular the difference is not only how the he approached making the photographs, but also in the definite, purposeful arrangement of them in this book. There is no other book of Asia by a non-asian that I’ve come away thinking “yeah, that is just how it is.” (and photographically, how it ought to be)

2. comment te dire adieu / さよならを教えて by Aya Fujioka

This is a book of pictures taken while traveling, but it is more about what happens upon returning home than anything else.

She writes:

そのとき、どうしても見たいと思っていたのに、見ることができなかったものを、どうして写真はあとになって、勝手に見せるのだろうか？

Why do photographs, later on, show things that you wanted to see and couldn’t see then?

Her photographs are elegant and quiet, and picture upon picture builds a portrait of how she dealt while “out there” and again back home.
There is not an set answer to her question above, and maybe there does not need to be.
A good collection of photographs will quietly leave the viewer with their own interpretation of the experience from coming into contact with the work. The accompanying text makes it feel like reading another person’s diary than simply thumbing through a stranger’s photo album. After several times through with this book I still can’t shake the feeling that it almost feels too intimate/private of a creation to have been given access to see.
A few more thoughts are here.

Also:
1. About a year ago in the basement of Watarium I broke off a corner of my Yodobashi Point Card trying to tighten a screw on Aya’s lens. The screw won that round (get it?). This was after she had looked through my portfolio which became The Difference Between, and right before we went next door to Shelf where we found a copy of her book. But it had a hold on it for another customer and she was a little embarrassed that I tried to mention to the clerk that she was the photographer in question. I think she said something about getting me a copy later but soon after she left for New York to continue studying photography.

2. Mika Kitamura has this same book in her apartment (this was my first real chance to take it all in). She said she loves Aya’s work and I asked if she would like to meet her. Unfortunately, I was never able to get her and Mika together before Aya left.

3. Nobuyoshi Araki: A Photographic Life / 荒木 経惟 写真生活 by Asahi Shimbunsha, Tokyo
This is a special issue of Asahi Camera that came out in August of 1981.
It is divided into 10 chapters!

All about Araki!

It’s Awesome!

Seriously!

He is really good at Self Promotion!