Cover Photo
Aya Takada — from Fragrance: Midnight
Aya Takada was born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1973. She studied photography at Tokyo School of Visual Arts and graduated in 1994. In the late 1990s she produced her own large format art photo magazine, named AREA. She was a member of Galeria Q from 1998 to 2005. During that period she exhibited her photos numerous times, and multiple times under the Fragrance theme. She is currently living in Tokyo. She is also active on Twitter.
On this series, taken in 2005, she comments: The area of Kabuki-cho in Tokyo [an entertainment and red-light district featuring many establishments operated by Japan’s infamous yakuza and the Chinese Triads -- Ed.] at night is a dangerous place at night, but at the same time full of mystery and wonder. At any time one can spectacularly observe a great variety of people, of all skin colours and races passing by. When photographing this series I took an Olympus Mju compact camera and turned my eyes towards the deeper Kabuki-cho. A variety of spectacles were unfolding in front of me. After a while I felt I was actually becoming part of what I was photographing. These photographs are the result.
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October 16th, 2009 at 11:12
Is there a link to Takada’s Kabukicho series? I couldn’t see one.
October 16th, 2009 at 15:37
Clive — I added the link to the full series to the beginning of second paragraph.
October 16th, 2009 at 22:11
perhaps I am missing something but she doesnt do a whole lot for me….
October 18th, 2009 at 21:33
Or me.
I’ll take the surface Kabukichō, thanks. It’s time for Kurata Seiji’s early work to come out in affordable form. (I bought Flash Up new at the list price, ha ha.)
October 24th, 2009 at 11:16
not sure what you guys were expecting – in your face kabukicho? the middle image in the preview should have been a big hint.
i like the mood of this work, it’s very casual.
October 24th, 2009 at 14:56
For me, it depends on what’s meant by “in your face” and “casual”.
The front cover of Flash Up has what might be regarded as one of the inyourfacest photos of the book, and to me its obviousness makes it one of the least interesting. Similarly, I’ve never been tempted to buy any book of Watanabe Katsumi’s work.
Nagano Shigeichi’s work — on very different subjects, of course — looks casual. I’m entranced by it. He’s made his casualness into an art, and he seems to have whittled and whittled his output till only the good stuff remains.
By contrast, this looks unwhittled. I suppose it’s deliberately Lomo-ish, and it’s probably my fault that the Lomo aesthetic does squat for me.
The Takanashi Yutaka of the underappreciated book Machi could have done great work with the surfaces of
brothels[euphemism mode ON] premises used by the adult entertainment industry.October 24th, 2009 at 21:11
like I said, maybe I am missing something…
October 25th, 2009 at 1:24
hi peter,
do you write a blog, or have a website?
October 25th, 2009 at 9:25
Dan (primarily): No, no blog or similar: I’m too lazy to do more than arrogantly impose my inane opinions on the readers of others’ websites, and on this one I fear that I’m probably very close to exhausting Dirk and Kurt’s patience. Time for me to crawl back under my rock!
October 25th, 2009 at 12:13
His rock is Wikipedia!
You’ve (anyone reading this) probably read more of Mr. Evan’s writing than you’d think (Dan).
The imbalance of sheer information on Hiroh Kikai vs. what’s in Araki’s entry aside, few people have uploaded as much information about the lesser known Japanese photographers onto the internet than Peter.
An Evans blog would be quite interesting and is nearly overdue. Peter I am quite looking forward to your thoughts on that upcoming Japanese Photobook-book whenever it finally comes out.
October 26th, 2009 at 17:34
Um, let’s not discuss Wikipedia here, please.
John, I happened to see the Japanese edition of the photobook-book when I was last in Kinokuniya. What surprised me was the number of books it portrays that are of photos that were old at the time of book publication: one collection of Nojima’s work, another of Kuwabara Kineo’s prewar work, etc. To me, this is not a minus (I shall buy a copy), but somebody thinking of ordering a copy without seeing it should realize that although a large percentage of it is devoted to the “Provoke” people, Narahara, Hosoe, and so forth, a significant percentage of it is not: older work aside, there’s a book by Kuwabara Shisei, another by Domon, etc.
October 26th, 2009 at 22:15
Any suggestions as to a good Kuwabara Kineo book which isn’t littered with captions like “There weren’t many cars on the streets in those days!” would be more than welcome. Something similar in editing and quality to that yellow and square Ueda book that would be fantastic but I doubt this exists…