Naoki Ishikawa was born in 1977 in Tokyo, Japan, and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Waseda University in 2002. Since the first book of his photography was published in 2003 (Pole to Pole, ChuoKoron Shinsha), he has published five additional books of his work, including Void (Knee High Media, 2005), New Dimension (AKAAKA, 2007) and Polar (Little More, 2007). This month sees the publication of two more bodies of work, Vernacular (AKAAKA) and Mt. Fuji (Little More), from which our Cover Photo is taken.

His work has been extensively exhibited since 2003, with solo exhibitions in Tokyo and Osaka, and participation in group exhibitions in Japan as well as in Shanghai, Vienna, and Seoul. He won a Jun Miki Award in 2006 from Nikon Salon for his exhibition “The Void”, and this year was awarded both the Newcomer’s Award from the Photographic Society of Japan, as well as Kodansha Publishers Culture Award for Photography. To top off a busy 2008, Ishikawa completed his Ph.D. from Tokyo University of the Arts. Currently, Ishikawa is a Special Research Fellow at the Institute for Art Anthropology at Tama Art University in Tokyo.