Rickshaw Driver, Ginza,Tokyo, 1938. Photograph by Hiroshi Hamaya Review by Lars Epstein for Japan Exposures. The photographer Hiroshi Hamaya (1915-1999) was only 16 years old when in 1931, with his then-new Leica camera, he took the oldest of the pictures displayed in the photographic exhibition “Tokyo Stories”, which opened at the Kulturhuset... 

Even though there is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described, the world that we live in is hardly a factual affair. Emotions, perceptions and an infinite number of combinations between the two make our lives much more of a mystery than we would like to believe. Certain is nothing. What was a given yesterday is full of vague and potential eventualities... 

Profile by John Sypal for Japan Exposures. Aya Fujioka’s photos are not those which espouse a refinement or a celebration of reality. The term “investigation” is inappropriate when attempting to relate them to any sort of exploration of the World. She is one of the few photographers whose pictures are perhaps best seen as evidence... 

I Don't Sleep, by Aya Fujioka. Published by Akaaka, 2009. Japan Exposures’ contributors John Sypal and Dan Abbe recently had several online chat sessions about Japanese photographer Aya Fujioka and her new book, 私は眠らない, or I Don’t Sleep, published late last year by Akaaka Art Publishing. They were nice enough to send the... 

Ken Kitano, from Flow and Fusion -- Tokyo Dome Profile by Yu Hidaka for Japan Exposures. Please also see our extended gallery of Kitano’s work. Note: click on images to see large The photographs of Ken Kitano are both extremely concrete and highly philosophical at the same time. Kitano, whom the critic and curator Vince Aletti picked as one of... 

The medium of photography was invented out of our strong desire to create a likeness of our reality — and ourselves in it. We then learned that the camera would see what our eyes never could — time being brought to a standstill. However, in actuality during the early days of the medium the relationship of photography and time was quite the... 

Nipporini is the pseudonym of the well-known commercial photographer Takahiro Wada, and a mash-up of the photographer’s hometown of Nippori in Tokyo, and the famed film director Federico Fellini. Wada’s “Nippori Guidebook” project and “Nipporini” persona as it were are a homage to his hometown, even as it also seems... 

Japan Exposures is pleased to present the work of Shinji Abe, who at 26 is one of the youngest — if not the youngest — photographers we’ve featured. It may come as something of a surprise to readers of this website, but Abe is one of a rather sizable group of young photographers who not only embrace film, the darkroom, and the vagaries... 

Photo-eye recently posted their annual “Best Books” feature, with a whole host of photographers and photo people submitting their top 10 books of 2009. Naturally I was interested to see what Japanese books made the grade, but was rather disappointed that on the whole so few Japanese books were chosen. This is I’m sure due in large... 

Introduced by Silas Dominey for Japan Exposures. I first saw Tomoyuki Sakaguchi’s images of suburban Tokyo when I was in my third year of a photography BA and something of a transparency film snob. Everything had to be film, and the only purpose of digital was quick and dirty snapshots. Sakaguchi’s work was the catalyst that suddenly pointed...