An image from Ume Kayo's book Danshi (Boys)

Review and event images by John Sypal for Japan Exposures

The achingly fashionable shopping complex Omotesando Hills hosts the current exhibition of Ume Kayo’s latest work, an event which coincides with the release of her most recent photobook. The title of both the book and the show is spelled Umep but pronounced “Umeppu” in Japanese.

Ume-me book cover

Winner of the Ihee Kimura prize in 2006 with a cheerful collection of often bizarre little pictures entitled Umeme, Ume Kayo’s affable pictures have earned her an interesting position in popular Japanese photography. In addition to impressive book sales she has created an interesting brand which surrounds her artistic output garnering her many fans and admirers. She is a terrific street photographer, and since her debut with Umeme she has gone on to exhibit her photography around Japan and been treated to an admittedly enviable career of fashion shoots, collaborations, commercial work, and several more photo books.

Banners outside of Omotesando Hills advertising the exhibition

Banners for the Umep exhibition are hung all along the front of Omotesando Hills. Upon entering the complex and navigating your way down an improbably ambiguous set of oddly lit stairs, a 300 yen entry fee grants one access to the large space where her photographs have been enlarged and mounted in a variety of ways and sizes. The installation is comprised of 1500 photographs, a viewing space with a TV showing video shot by her (complete with pink pillows to sit on while you watch), a few tables where people can leave messages (with provided pastel colored pens) for Ms. Kayo in sketchbooks, and a photo stage where visitors can take their pictures surrounded by several enlarged cutout reproductions of her big white dog. Pictures are hung from the ceiling, mounted flat in rows as 1-hour style prints. Often they are complimented by doodles and characters drawn by Ms. Kayo. Other times tape or pushpins have been fixed to the walls to echo visual elements from within the frame of the photographs. During my visit the gallery was full of hip young men and women off the streets of the Omotesando and Harajuku neighborhoods and the average age of attendees would be closer to 20 than 30. People are there for the event, the experience of entering what is at one point referred to as Umekayo Hills.

Colored spotlights add to the particular feel to the show.

The show’s exit naturally passes through a gift shop which offers not only five full collections of her photographs and copies of the (many) recent magazines that she has been featured in, but also novels by other writers that have used her pictures for their covers. Additionally one can take home her pictures in the form of postcards, buttons, file folders, and even a special edition bottle of Ume Kayo plum wine, something, which is quite positively an intoxicating pun as “Ume” is literally “Plum” in Japanese. Some may scoff but the blatantly commercial characteristics of this exhibition are an apt match for a venue tucked into the first floor of a $330 million dollar shopping center located in the heart of Tokyo’s fashion scene. There seems to be a perfect balance between this energetic young artist and the flood of fashionable young people who frequent Harajuku.

The draw of her pictures lies in the fact that they are immediate, downright funny, and tuned with a particularly sweet sense of empathy. At their best, the pictures are gleefully and unapologetically photographic manifestations of “Look at that! “. The appeal I find in Ume Kayo’s pictures lies in her approach to photography. She obviously doesn’t fuddle with any preconceived line between life and art, and in that grand Japanese tradition understands that living and photographing is freshest when the two become inseparable. The work is a byproduct of her personal interaction with the people and world around her but what makes it more interesting than the usual sorts of these pictures is how her gift of anticipation and lack of restraint with a camera allows her to capture truly fascinating scenes from her local world.

Stage for visitor commemoration photographs

Photos will be added to this wall through out the duration of the exhibition

Though it’s hard to tell what was set for the camera or simply captured from the flow of everyday life in the end it doesn’t really matter because in it’s totality the charm of the work shines through. You can’t help but crack a smile when flipping through her collections. We need photographers like Ume Kayo to be the cheeky antidote to all the serious and boring and stuffy pictures out there. Indeed, Umep even features a picture of a man awkwardly stretching in Asakusa right on Hiroh Kikai’s very own photographic turf (red wall and all). However in this one simple snap Ms. Kayo has granted more life and human individuality to this man than any other Asakusa portrait you’ll find. She counters the Mapplethorpes, the Michael Kennas and the Ansel Adamses of the world with work that is of a different kind of photographic wonder.

I suppose that most criticism to Ume Kayo’s photographs and perhaps even more so her success is founded on the belief that photography must be Serious, or Beautiful, or Instructive. And that it should look all the other predictable Seriously Beautiful and Seriously Instructive artwork in the Photographic canon. While she does indeed shoot with a Canon EOS 5 on film, her work isn’t socially conscious nor is it something which is at ease with the traditionally accepted propriety of photographic Art with a capital A. The blatant marketing of her brand which surrounds the core of her creations is to me balanced out by a lack of pretension. I assume that to her pictures are just pictures. Sometimes that is all they have to be.

The fact that so many are as interesting as they are makes encountering her work quite enjoyable for those able to appreciate art rooted in an innocent interest in the peculiarities of the everyday.

John Sypal with Ume Kayo after a chance on the street encounter in Daikanyama in 2009

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At that time, I realize that I can regain the connection with the world.

K Nishiyama, 2010

While evidence of the man-made landscape, which very often would be more aptly titled the man-altered landscape, is visible all over the world, I have always believed that for some reason it seems more obvious and noticeable in Japan. Is it the widely acknowledged density of the place, or simply the breathtaking pace at which it takes place? Or the for Western eyes and minds incomprehensible reasoning of the decision-making process to replace areas of nature in cities that already seem short of them with more housing, roads or shopping complexes?

Observers of photographic culture in Japan are also only too familiar with the dominating style of nature and landscape photography. Images of immaculate and perfect flowers, waterways, mountains, images of nature that almost violently belie the presence of nearby powerlines and places of industry.

Koichi Nishiyama’s photographs provide a quiet view onto an environment at a crossroads in time. His introductory statement aside, we do not know what has disappeared from the scenes in front of us, neither do we know what will be there in the future. In some sense, the subject matter of these images touches on the pure essence of photography — a moment without a past and without a future. What we do know is that a decision has been made and hands were laid onto this grounds.

In my view the most powerful articulation of observing this changing landscape is not the explicit and accusing imagery that seems to shout loudly “stop doing this”, rather than pictures that calmly, yet very emotionally, seem to affirm: “this is the world, that we chose to create for ourselves”.

What we hope for from the artist is help in discovering the significance of a place. In this sense we would choose in most respects for thirty minutes with Edward Hopper’s painting Sunday Morning to thirty minutes on the street that was his subject; with Hopper’s vision we see more. – Robert Adams – p.16, Beauty in Photography.

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The show, currently at the Konica Minolta gallery in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward until August 10th, features work shot by him over a 10 year period. You may remember that back in April Japan Exposures featured work from Takiura entitled “Tokyo Bodies”. Both that series, and the work currently on show, were shot at the same time. However, when he began to shape the work into a series and ultimately his first photo book (also Tokyo Bodies), he focused on the “street photography” aspect where random strangers formed the central subject. However, for this show and a new photo book, Tokyo Products, there are no people present in any of the shots.

I say that there are no people, and on the surface that is very much true, but in reality, the people are everywhere — their presence is unmistakeable. This presence manifests itself in two ways: on the one hand, what often attracts Takiura’s eyes are shapes and scenes that bear a human-like quality (for example, a rubber glove stuck on the end of a pipe on the side of a building conjures up with nary a leap a human arm and hand); and on the other hand, Takiura is constantly providing us with scenes literally man-made, as if he had snapped the scene just after a set designer had finished setting it up (for example, an old washing machine that has now become an impromptu plant holder, or a shot of a door with two wires inexplicably snaking out from the door’s mail slot).

Like most photographers exhibiting their work there was a statement on the wall that Takiura wrote. To be quite honest, I rarely read these, whether they are in English or in Japanese. But this one was so short I was intrigued. Beyond what it said — something to the effect of “when I walk around I often notice that the landscapes and scenes I pass resemble something human, or on the other hand, perhaps they don’t” — what I thought was significant was that this statement was placed in such a way that it could have easily been missed, and in fact I didn’t see it until I had seen the entire show. Not surprisingly, Takiura confirmed to me later that he would rather not write anything and let the photos speak for themselves, but in the end bowed to a feeling that visitors might feel empty without some explanatory text, however oblique (and obliquely displayed) it might be.

I felt fortunate to meet Takiura at the gallery. Previously we had corresponded via e-mail regarding selling his book and featuring his work on Japan Exposures, and it was clear from those interactions that he is very serious not just about the work itself but how that work is positioned, talked about, and put into context. Part of those email discussions revolved around the fact that Takiura would prefer that the work be judged on its own merits, rather than in comparison to other photographers. So, it was with some trepidation that I suggested to him — in response to his genuine query as to whether overseas photography viewers would understand work that didn’t feature any people in it — that his photographs in this current series reminded me of Hiroh Kikai’s two “Tokyo labyrinth” books (here and here). That is to say, beyond the superficial square format that both works share, there is a humor and irony in what both choose to capture, and that to my mind at least these “still lifes” of Takiura’s interact and resonate with his street photography in much the same way that I find Kikai’s people-less Tokyo cityscapes bounce off and inform (or are informed by) his better known “Asakusa Portraits” work. (For his part, Takiura was non-committal to this comparison, as I expected he would be.)

In person I found Takiura to be humble and soft-spoken yet with very clear, well-considered opinions that he no doubt had formed over a long period of taking pictures and thinking about photography. But by the same token, he was very keen to get my opinion on the photographs or on particular aspects of the exhibition. One thing that is very apparent from listening to Takiura is that this — taking photos, and publishing these books — is very much a labor of love. By that I don’t just mean that he doesn’t make money from these endeavors — although clearly he doesn’t — but that rather money or recognition doesn’t seem to interest him in the slightest. He wants to takes pictures, as time and the mundane business of making a living (from photography, but not his own) allow, and he wants to show them to people, both in shows like the current one (although I get the impression these exhibits are fairly “one-off”) and more importantly, in the two books he has so far self-published.

In early June, Takiura’s Tokyo Bodies photo book was featured as one of 60 self-published photobooks at the “Self Publish, Be Happy” 2-day event held at the Photographer’s Gallery in London and organized by Bruno Ceschel. Takiura was candid with me that he could very easily pay one of the handful of small photography publishing houses a tidy sum to publish his work under their imprint (in Japan, the prevailing model is artists pay publishers to publish a book of their work, not the other way around), but has chosen not to. Aside from being cheaper to do it himself, there is the much more important aspect of control — Takiura is a control freak in the best possible sense of the phrase, and for him not only the editing but also the design, and the look and feel of the book, are especially paramount. No surprise then that the new work Tokyo Products is again of the same, considered design as Tokyo Bodies, with Takiura even going so far as to design a slipcase that will house both of them.

Before taking my leave, Takiura pulled out his camera, the one he used to take all these Tokyo “portraits”, the only camera he uses for his personal work — a pre-war Rolleiflex with Tessar lens (sorry, didn’t get the specific model, but this is one of the early Rolleiflexes with the “Rolleiflex” on the nameplate in an old semi-cursive font, not the later boxier font). While it’s true that these tools should hardly make a difference, I can’t deny that seeing this 75-plus year old camera, so obviously lovingly looked after, and seeing the excellent work on the walls that it had a small hand in producing, and meeting the humble but assured Takiura, who had of course the biggest hand in all this, heartened me to no end as I went back out into Tokyo’s sticky summer heat.

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Shiyo Takahashi, Manager at Leica Ginza Shop (Taken with Leica Noctilux-M 50/f1.0)

The Leica and Japan — an association of which many legends are made of, but perhaps also a relationship that is often misunderstood or misinterpreted. Many people see the Japanese camera market solely populated by wealthy individuals that will put the precious machine only on the shelf, longing to be used to what is was made for, taking photos.

Together with John Sypal of Tokyo Camera Style we visited the Leica Ginza Shop in central Tokyo to find out what Leica in Japan is all about.

Shiyo Takahashi has been managing the flagship outlet in Tokyo since its opening in 2006. The store, more resembling a fashion boutique than a camera shop, was the first of its kind for Leica worldwide and follow-on locations like recently London Mayfair are modelled after it. Takahashi was also involved in developing the Leica M7 Limited Edition Hermès, a total of 200 silver chrome Leica M7 cameras with exquisite leather finishes applied by Hermès (a French high fashion house specializing in leather, ready-to-wear, lifestyle accessories, perfumery, and luxury goods — Ed.). Takahashi’s professional background is in the fashion and luxury brand industry, however he has been an active photographer since his high school days.

Japan Exposures: In Japan one can still encounter a great number of photographers using film cameras. Are you selling a lot of the classic Leica M cameras?

Shiyo Takahashi: : I don’t have the exact numbers on hand right now, but a high proportion of Leica MP and M7 cameras are sold in Japan, and the majority of those here through the Leica Ginza Shop. That means this store is selling a substantial number of film cameras that Leica produces.

JE: Is this also the reason why we see many special editions sold here?

ST: Indeed — I was involved in developing the Hermès edition and before that we had the 50th Anniversary Leica MP Titanium, another film camera. Suffice to say that Japan is the principal place to still sell such kind of film cameras.

JE: Are these cameras well received then?

ST: Absolutely, people are still actively looking for 50th Anniversary Titanium M7 and MP. In fact, it is not just Japan, we have a lot of interest from Leica users in Korea, Hong Kong and China. Japan, and as you know Ginza in particular, is a very special place when it comes to cameras. Dr Kaufmann (Andreas Kaufmann, Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Leica Camera AG since June 19, 2009 — Ed), who incidentally will visit us tomorrow and hold a lecture at the JCII Camera Museum on Sunday, used to come to Ginza to browse for used cameras even before his involvement at Leica.

“If people want to buy a camera, they will buy a Sony, Panasonic or Nikon. People come here to buy a Leica.”

JE: So are you happy with how you are doing in Japan from a business standpoint?

ST: Oh yes, even though we are also feeling the effect of the current economic situation. Nonetheless, the digital range — M8, M9 and X1 — are all doing very well at the moment. The time around 2006 was an important period for us, when we entered the digital age with the Leica M series. The opening of this shop at that time was also a turning point on who we would address as our target market. When before it was camera and photo enthusiasts, we are now engaging a much wider customer base. I am referring to people interested in high-quality consumer and luxury goods. Audio systems, cars, watches, that sort of things.

JE: People who like expensive things?

ST: It’s not that simple, even though these people definitely exist, especially in Asian boom economies. And even they don’t just want things for the sake of being costly. They know what quality is and they know what a quality brand is. I mean a brand with quality products with tangible value, not just a popular luxury brand. Just like these people would buy a very good wine, they may buy a Leica, because it is the best product of its kind. That’s one way to see things, but to be fair the majority of Leica buyers are more interested in the philosophy behind the product. The technology, the design and how it is made, plus of course the history and heritage. Many of our customers are creative professionals, for example musicians or designers. They appreciate the beauty of the object as much as its functionality and performance, similar to a musical instrument like a well-crafted guitar. Another group of customers are doctors, people in healthcare. Again, not just because they may have the means, but because they are scientists and have a natural appreciation of technical expertise and precision instruments, for example MRI (medical imaging), microscopes and other precision optical devices. So it is not just people who like the Leica name or brand, it is individuals who seek a high level of quality and performance in the equipment they use.

Shiyo Takahashi holding the best selling Leica a la Carte configuration: Leica M7 Black Paint with lizard skin and silver MP controls

JE: On Tokyo Camera Style we lately encounter a lot of younger people who carry and photograph with a Leica M camera, I would even say more than, say, five years ago. Do you see the same or have an explanation for this?

ST: Yes, I am aware of this trend. In my view there are several reasons for these people to move towards a Leica. Bear in mind that some younger people may not even know film-based photography, they grew up with digital cameras. So this way of how a photo can be made is new to them. Using a toy camera or the old Olympus Pen is very popular in Japan. Then there is the handling of a rangefinder camera, which is different and perhaps they will try a Voigtländer camera and like it. Yet another reason is the image quality produced by a rangefinder lens. Eventually people will discover the Leica, its history and all that, and will be attracted to join that culture.

JE: What is it like to sell a German-made product, and a niche product at that, in the home market of the big manufacturers like Nikon and Canon, who probably account for 99% of camera sales?

ST: I don’t think it is a direct comparison. If people want to buy a camera, they will buy a Sony, Panasonic or Nikon. People come here to buy a Leica.

JE: Do you think that in Japan the attitudes towards cameras and photography are different from elsewhere?

ST: As far as collectors or enthusiasts are concerned, I don’t think so. Yes, they are very much into their pursuit, but that’s not too different from other places or other areas like collecting wines, fashion or stamps. They are obsessed with the subject.

JE: Does your clientele mainly consist of such people?

ST: For film cameras, yes, but M8, M9 buyers acquire the camera with a strong intention to use it. They want to take photos. Take us as Leica staff, we all own a Leica MP, but the camera we use on a regular basis is the digital M or a compact. A digital camera is almost like a household appliance, it’s bought to be used.

JE: The people desiring a classic film camera seem often to originate from the post-war baby boom generation, a group that is getting older and has been supporting a lot of the camera shops that we now see slowly disappearing…

ST: Yes, the demand for film cameras is comparatively low. One thing that recently is very popular is the Leica a la carte programme. Due to an adjustment for the exchange rate to Euro, their prices have dropped by 20-30%. We have several customers purchasing their third or fourth a la carte Leica.

JE: In terms of products, is Leica treating the Japanese market differently from other places in the world?

ST: If you mean limited edition cameras for Japan only, we would like to, but it is difficult to make one item really exclusive to one location. When we opened in Ginza four years ago, we released the M3J, later we had the titanium MP, but eventually they will become available elsewhere. For example, now that the Leica Shop in London has opened, they would also like to have their own edition, but it is difficult to make it really limited. What we would like to do is special editions on digital, but it is a little early for that. I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing special editions targeted at special markets, be it Japan, the US or for example the Middle East. Tastes are different and people like having a choice different from what’s available normally.

JE: With the change to digital, what is your outlook into the future?

ST: Film will get rarer and more expensive, almost like a luxury product. However, there will always be things that digital cannot do and that film can do very well. When you make prints, you can see an obvious difference between the two. However, digital is just so easy in terms of technique and the rewards are instant. Imagine going on a holiday trip, you can see the results quickly, edit them etc. That is very attractive to people. It enhances the learning process by getting feedback and seeing the results of their technique immediately. It’s a great way to learn photography, to learn to take photos. Then, once you have the skills, you should go and shoot with a film Leica again.

Repair and Service Counter at Leica Ginza Shop

A case displaying every component of a Leica M7

JE: What will happen to the Leica-manias, the serious enthusiasts that know every camera ever produced and such things?

ST: Oh, they are still around. We get quite a few people that come in and take a display camera to listen to the shutter firing in excitement, over and over. They already own these cameras themselves, so they visit the shop for servicing or to buy accessories. They have gone digital as well, following the times.

But there is another important change with digital: before, photography was really an individual’s hobby, you did it on your own. But now with the M8 and M9, it has become a family hobby, for everyone. It is so easy to shoot and share results, even the normally not interested spouse can do it, very accessible. In fact, some people don’t really care about what the equipment is as long as it lets them take great pictures. Of course, there are also the artistically minded people, but the camera is capable of serving all of them well. Before, only particular people were into photography seriously, but now this has entered into the mainstream.

JE: Surely, that is a good thing for Leica..?

ST: Of course, it’s good for everyone. The playing field is now level. Everyone can do it, shoot like a pro if they want to, or just family pictures.

JE: Are there any Leica Japan-only versions or editions of products in the pipeline?

ST: I don’t think so. We still have a lot of people waiting for their M9 and X1, so that needs to be taken care of first. Actually I don’t think that many people buy these specials because they are in some way special or limited. It’s more that they find the designs or colors attractive and that is then the driver to purchase, not that it is in some way a scarce or limited product.

Leica M8 Safari Edition

JE: How about a Leica M9 a la carte instead?

ST: Of course, that would be nice, but mind you there are not so many elements of the camera that can be varied, unlike with the film Leicas. We made a very small run of Leica M8 with silver elements and purple leather coverings, they were very popular. Another even more popular special was the Leica M8 Safari, which was sold out even before launch. The White lasted a little longer, even though white is a very popular color in Japan.

JE: Are Leica in Germany aware enough about how things work, perhaps differently, in other parts of the world, or do you have to nudge things into the right direction from time to time?

ST: Oh, they know about Japan. They work with Panasonic and of course are aware what the other players in the camera industry are doing. They know that Japan is a different market, even when compared to the rest of Asia, quality-wise, culturally and how people take photographs here.

JE: So what challenges remain for you?

ST: To maintain and keep up the level of service and quality. We are catering to a market that will always be able to make a purchase, if they want to. So service and quality are key. Of course anyone can come in here, have look at the cameras and lenses, we take the money and put it in a shopping bag. You don’t need to come to a Leica shop to have that experience. We have many customers, ladies and gentlemen alike, who appreciate our special service. On the occasion when they wish to buy something, they book in advance and when they come to the shop we will take care of them at the level and quality of service that such clients would expect. It does not stop with Japanese buyers, in fact we have customers from Europe or USA, and of course from places like China, who, despite the price differential, choose to buy here instead of their home country. They enjoy their time here, the whole process and location of buying their Leica. It is not just the purchase or the item, it makes a memorable experience to come here. Not unlike a child would enjoy a trip to a theme park.

Leica Ginza Shop and Salon
6-4-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Tel: +81 (0) 3 6215 7070
Fax: +81 (0) 3 6215 7071

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 11.00 am – 7.00 pm

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Two years ago, Onishi — who in addition to his photobooks has penned books about exploring his Tokyo through photography walks and often leads his students on such excursions, organized a similar exhibition in the Urayasu area of Chiba near Tokyo Disneyland. For that event, in locales as diverse as a ramen shop, a hair salon, a five-and-dime candy store, and a community center, among others, Onishi showed work both by himself and others connected with the Urayasu or Chiba area, like Kazuo Kitai, Aya Okabe, and John Sypal. At the time, I remember Onishi as being fidgety because on that sweltering Tokyo summer day there were rather few visitors and he wondered aloud whether everyone was at home watching the first day of the Beijing Olympics in the comfort of their air-conditioned homes.

A poster shows the way to the Contemporary Art museum, currently showing work related to Studio Ghibli (far right poster).

We ran into Onishi on the street on the day we went down to see the Fukagawa exhibit, and he was clearly pleased with the comparative success of the current event. Due to the exhibition area’s proximity to the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, which currently is showing a collection of art and posters from the popular movies of Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli, and the fact that foot traffic from the closest subway station to the museum passes directly through the main neighborhood exhibition space, attendance was the least of Onishi’s worries, and later we overheard one gallery proprietor claim hundreds of visitors to his small gallery over the 3-day holiday weekend just passed when one suspects it might normally take him two to three weeks to have the same number of visitors.

Here is a takeaway on some of the exhibitions we took in (unfortunately, on the day we visited, some of the shops were closed due to the national holiday of the previous day, so we weren’t able to see all the different exhibitions):

Onishi himself exhibited a series of about 8 photographs in the shop window of a modern home goods store. These photographs were taken with a 4×5 camera set up similarly to a pinhole camera, with 40-minute or so exposures recorded on printing out paper (POP), a process that gives the images a blue tint similar to that at work in blueprint drawings. The photos were of various summer-themed landscapes and were rather different and subdued from the ironic street work Onishi is better known for. We found the combination of long exposure, small format and the blue tone particularly appealing and would have enjoyed a closer and longer look, but with temperatures what they are in a Tokyo summer and the photos only visible from the outside we had to move on sooner than we wanted. Onishi himself laughingly commented on the challenges of spending the time during long exposures outside in summer.

Akihiko Saito - Still Life exhibition hanging from the outer wall of a local temple.

In terms of presentation, Akihito Saito had perhaps the most interesting exhibit with his “Still Life” series of seven photos suspended by twine along the wall of one of the areas temples. The fiber prints had holes punched into them to which the twine was tied. Without frames, curling, exposed to the elements, the exhibition was tactile and tangible existing in the environment of the neighborhood in a way the other exhibitions we saw weren’t. The fact that later we came across the same type of twine being used for a completely different purpose helped to seal the impression of tactility.

Yuki Kanehira -- Dojunkai Kiyosuna-dori Apartments exhibition poster

On the second floor of the area’s merchants’ association office, which was really a local resident’s house, Yuki Kanehira exhibited about 12 large prints from a much larger body of work documenting the dilapidated and now mostly demolished Dojunkai Kiyosuna-dori apartments that were located just a few blocks from where this exhibition was. This apartment complex was one of 16 ferroconcrete and steel complexes that were built by the Interior Ministry in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake from 1924 to 1936 (the most famous of which were the now-demolished Dojunkai Aoyama apartments along Omotesando in central Tokyo). Kanehira himself moved into the apartment complex after his early attempts to document the place were met with derision from the residents, and over a seven year period documented the almost exclusively senior citizen residents. His close connection with these apartments, and more importantly with the residents who lived there, was clear to see in the photos. However in our opinion, the work could have been strengthened by including more of the residents and less of the dilapitated buildings, images visible in the supplementary slideshow running on a computer in the room.

We were disappointed to find that Japan Exposures-featured Sachiko Kadoi‘s work was being shown in a reflexology clinic which had customers, so we weren’t able to go in and had to content ourselves with looking through the window. We were excited to see new work from Kadoi-san focusing on the rivers that run through Tokyo, including one very large print that occupied a dominant place in the shop, and hope we will be able to catch up with her on a different occasion so we can see where this new direction is taking her.

The photographer Toshiya Murakoshi runs TAP Gallery, one of the few actual galleries to serve as an exhibition space for the Photo Session. It is a small place, and the lighting was not the best. Another problem was that it was not easy to see a connection between the work and the area, although there was a handwritten statement on the wall that did attempt to explain why these photos were being exhibited. Nevertheless, it seemed something of a missed opportunity, and the work itself was not nearly as strong as the landscape work which was on view in a series of photo books Murakoshi has published over the last few years.

Kiyosumi Shirakawa storefronts - the establishment on the right was part of the Photo Session, but sadly closed on the day we visited.

While the Fukagawa Photo Session Exhibition will be over in a few days, if you do find yourself in Tokyo, a visit to the Kiyosumi Shirakawa area is well worth a visit. The aforementioned Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by Japanese architect Takahiko Yanagisawa, is a wonderful museum with a lot of varying exhibits from all genres in very large exhibition spaces (a huge Daido Moriyama exhibition from his Sao Paulo series was held there a couple of years ago). In addition to that, there is also the small but highly recommended Edo Fukagawa Museum which contains 11 full-scale replicas of traditional houses, vegetable and rice shops, a fish store, two inns, a fire watchtower, and tenement homes, arranged to resemble an actual neighborhood. Several blocks away a warehouse is home to some of Tokyo’s most important galleries including Taka Ishii (Moriyama, Naoya Hatakeyama, and Nobuyoshi Araki among others are represented), Shugo Arts (Takuma Nakahira, Shimabuku), and Tomio Koyama Gallery (Yoshitomo Nara). No wonder then that last year, when photo book publisher AKAAKA was looking for a place to set up a combination company office and art gallery, they settled on the Kiyosumi Shirakawa area.

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Perhaps we do a disservice to the work even mentioning the low-fi, constructed nature of it — after all, what photography isn’t constructed? There is no “real thing” when it comes to photography, or for that matter, memory, and longing. They are all constructions, and all very low-fi — muddy, blurry, and fragile.

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Essay by Marc Hohmann for Japan Exposures. Photos courtesy Shingo Wakagi for Famous Aspect.

For me as a Creative Director and Editor, visual creation is always about the formation of a new world. A “Gesamtkunstwerk”. Old harmony. New combination. What form should go with this image? Which sound should surround this product? What word is an extension of this shape? And so on. When I am working with a photograph it is about working with or against a context. It exists as personal art before type (a word or a price) is on it. Afterwards it is an art product and its success is measured by its universal rather than personal or regional appeal. As a designer, photography is one of the graphic ingredients at my disposal and I frequently utilise the work of Japanese photographers.

Japanese photography (and I believe a lot of Japanese 20th century art, architecture and music) has always been strongest when in a most direct reaction to a cultural, most often Western, current: The 60′s psychedelic era, the 70′s punk movement, 80′s post-modernism, the 90′s individual & technology changes, the 2000′s and still current authenticity vs. imitation trends and so on. All of these created peak examples of photographic brilliance everywhere in the world. However, the decades’ highlights in Japanese art photography (both personal and commercial) survived this better than most Western images because, a) emotionally their creators were never as invested in these Western currents as the ones in the originating countries; and, b) the Japanese are by nature more society-conscious and therefore more careful in execution; and finally, c) their creator’s tendency to replace emotional and fashionable advances with overly methodical, technical skills. Curiously from a modernist perspective, these ingredients (or, in minimalist terms “positive restrictions”) are major in creating a universal appeal.

“Emotions are mostly expressed through contrast, focus or composition, rather than direct expressive attitude or subjective gestures.
”

Something specific that comes to mind here is the intentional, pragmatic and architectural use of space in Japanese photography and Japanese film since the 1920′s. Their use of negative space – mostly composed, controlled and open – is not as intimidating and less filled with expression than their Western counterparts. Emotions such as anger, for example, are mostly expressed through contrast, focus or composition, rather than direct expressive attitude or subjective gestures. To me, quintessential Japanese photography is strong because of its open, compositional distance and its emotional constraint and not because of its Western, in-your-face, “aggressive” spontaneity or directness.

I find these qualities very attractive and it is important as a (Western) designer to understand their artistic dimension as they can be treated as design statements in themselves. Personally for some time now, my work has been about a refined “more with less” approach which is rather about framing space than occupying it. This means finding the most elegant, non-forced position for a design element or message with the intention to elevate the total experience. When I’m working with great Japanese images I am attempting to create a strong field that supports the photo’s structural distance and openness which I find so modern. Instead of pushing a dominant message against the image to create tension, I am trying to work off of its inherent qualities. From the depth of a title, or the size of the type to the precision of the crop, it’s all about keeping nuances while creating a new context. A reference would be a Toru Takemitsu score (a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory — Ed.) where the composer is carefully balancing his intention to support a scene with the goal of creating a totally new dimension whenever the film’s open, sparse architecture allows it.

The great NY architect Richard Gluckman once told me that in his work he is always considering the importance of space in relation to the object: It is both the object that defines the space and the space that defines the object. According to him, a space isn’t finished until it is occupied by an intention. My advice is the same when I’m reviewing young photographer’s portfolios or speaking to my design assistants: Before photographing or designing space try to remove yourself from it and look at it from a distance or from the outside. Gather information about its purpose and its inherent qualities. This will bring it closer to the attributes I admire in great Japanese photographic works.

An image that I like very much is a diptych story by Shingo Wakagi that was shot for my magazine Famous Aspect. The series is titled Tokyo Modern. One image shows a still life of beautiful weathered flowers, the other a girl in a kimono sitting on a bed in an apartment. There is an air of intimacy and distance that I really like and it reflects some of the ambiguities expressed above. Looking at it you have no sense of time. It is a fashion image yet there is no fashion there. It is sad yet beautiful. Close but unreachable.

Photos: Shingo Wakagi for Famous Aspect, Text: Marc Hohmann © 2010 – All Rights Reserved

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What shines through all his images is the gentle approach to his subjects, respectful and yet with a powerful, and at times uncomfortable, quiet undercurrent. Street photography is no longer a niche pursuit, however finding interesting angles of approach is a challenge. I believe that in this genre the photographer’s own personality makes a visible difference in the resulting photographs. I enjoyed looking at Arimoto’s street portraits because you can sense a that these were not images taken by a passing snapper, but someone who bothered to engage on the way. The photos date back over several years, with series named systematically as ariphoto vol. x and no other titles or captions that would shed some light on a context for the viewer. We can see a spectrum of subjects ranging from attractive women to what appear to be homeless people. The reasons for making this photograph is not clear to the viewer and those seeking such clarity might find Arimoto’s photographs a suitable exercise to tolerate a greater element of the unsaid when looking at images.

Shinya Arimoto was born in Osaka in 1971. He graduated from Osaka School of Visual Arts (whose faculty includes Daido Moriyama) in 1994. Since his graduation he held numerous exhibitions and since 2006 is a represented member of Totem Pole Photo Gallery. A solo exhibition titled 「ariphoto selection vol.1」is held at the gallery from 6-11 July 2010.

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Review by John Sypal for Japan Exposures

The thing about Daido Moriyama books is that as nice as they are, by now they certainly won’t surprise anyone. You know what you’re going to get the moment you see the cover. Ginza? Buenos Aries? Hawaii? You know exactly how the pictures are going to look. As a native Nebraskan I can tell you that if Moriyama were to spend a week shooting in the Cornhusker State the inevitable collection is going to look just like Moriyama does Nebraska. And it probably wouldn’t look all that different than his pictures of anywhere else he has photographed. Until the other day the only book by Moriyama that I had in my collection was the cheaper of his two Hokkaido books.

To me Moriyama had always been one of those photographers whose work was never all that interesting and it wasn’t until his Hokkaido show at Rathole gallery in early 2009 when it clicked. I found his exhibited work extremely moving, the gravity of which was revealed in a gallery setting with prints metaphorically layering upon one another to create a dizzying experience. I went five times to that show. In print (as opposed to prints) the books felt flat. Literally his pictures are layered on one another in book form but nearly all of his books were too constricting, too much about the book than the images to be of much personal interest.

So the other day at Sokyusha, the preeminent photo book publisher in Tokyo, I surprised myself by purchasing a copy of Moriyama’s recent book Nagisa. As I flipped through it, from behind the counter Ota-san, the shop owner, mentioned that this collection is simply of Moriyama’s current love interest, a kabukicho & kayokoku singer named Yoko Nagisa. While my photography book collection might be lean on Daido Moriyama, books featuring lovers or wives of Japanese photographers are well represented. Looking at it in the context of such a book it was doubly interesting.

Yoko. What else could her name be but Yoko?

On one hand Nagisa follows that grand tradition of Japanese photo books centering on a singer or musical act. On the other hand it follows the other even grander tradition of Japanese photo books in that it are collections of photos of a lover. Since both of those hands belong to Moriyama it is very much the book you might imagine when hearing “Daido Moriyama’s Kabukicho lounge singer girlfriend love story”. If you know much about any of the words in the previous sentence you probably have a good idea as to how this book looks.

The book is handsome. It’s thick, visually dense, and features exquisite printing. Laid out flat it pulls the viewer in. Plus she is gorgeous. But for as hefty as the book is and for as distantly beautiful as Ms. Nagisa is there isn’t much development of her or her relationship with the photographer throughout all 200+ pages. She makes a good picture, hell, Moriyama makes a great picture and that’s what this comes down to. It’s two people good at what they do – one skilled with a camera, the other one looking great with eyeshadow in vintage outfits, moody bars, back streets of Shinuku, singing at Moriyama exhibitions, on desolate beaches, in the last train car, or among cherry trees in bloom. Sometimes it is several of these things at once.

But for every moody monochromatic sunset or languid look off into the distance one might feel that what’s not captured is true personal development. We don’t know any more about Yoko Nagisa by the last few pages than we could gather from the first ones. Moriyama’s Yoko is certainly not Araki’s Yoko. That said, maybe we don’t need to expect intense character development or a Deep Story when looking at collections like this. A beautiful book can be just that. In this way this collaboration between these two performers has resulted in something well worth a look.

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Advertising of the Zenza Bronica D in a magazine in September 1959 (昭和34年9月) as "The Rolls-Royce of Cameras"

At around 1960, a man the Americans called “Mr. Zenza” came to the USA and had lunch with Burt Keppler, the former well-known publisher of Modern Photography and Popular Photography magazines in the United States and one of the most respected and influential figures in the history of the camera industry. Keppler, who passed away in 2008, was a driving force behind the success of the Japanese camera industry. Mr. Zenza was in America to sell his camera, the Zenza Bronica. It was to become a widely used camera family, not least by recording millions of weddings shot on medium format film.

Rewind.

A set of Bronica gas lighters

Zenzaburo Yoshino was born in 1911 as the third son of a prosperous rice dealer, which even at that time had over 150 employees. Yoshino initially continued his family’s rice business. However, in the aftermath of WW II and the resulting US occupational forces’ rice rationing and control over rice distribution he was keen to expand and diversify the business into new areas. Why he got interested in cameras is not clear, but he was known to enjoy a stroll over Ginza and looking at the various camera stores there. Being from a wealthy family he was certainly in a position to afford the expensive hobby of photography. Yoshino began to be known as a real camera mania, an obsessive photo enthusiast. He admired Victor Hasselblad, the Swedish inventor and photographer, known for developing the modular Hasselblad 6×6 cm medium format camera.

In 1946, Yoshino opened a used camera store called 新光堂写真機店 — Shinkoudou Shashinki-ten in Kanda-Tachō (神田多町), the ward of Chiyoda in Tokyo. Despite the hard times of the post-war era, many still affluent Japanese would sell off their cameras to buy the latest models. The shop was a viable business and prospering. Nonetheless Yoshino grew tired of simply buying and selling cameras. Thus behind the shop’s premises the 新光堂製作所 — Shinkoudou Manufacturing workshop was established in 1947, with the primary intention to design and manufacture cameras. They failed to do so, but to improve their skill and workmanship the workshop started producing delicate fashion accessories made of metal, such as metal cigarette cases, brooches, lighters and women’s compacts (portable beauty accessory with powder and mirror). In 1952 Yoshino wanted to try building a camera once more but realised that a better workshop was needed.

Bronica Shinkoudou Manufacturing Ltd in Kami-Itabashi in 1954

The actual birthplace of Bronica was an old Japanese-style building in Kami-Itabashi in Itabashi ward in northern Tokyo, a district known for its numerous small manufacturing operations. Zenzaburo Yoshino was a child of the Meiji era and was content with a modest and simple factory. It even served as a home for the Yoshino family, including their two children aged two at the time and a maid, on the first floor and the machinery, reception and delivery areas on the ground floor. The division of the house was not too dissimilar from his earlier experience of running the rice store.

Zenzaburo Yoshino's business card from around 1952 with the Kami-Itabashi address

The accessory business blossomed and a large proportion of the company’s income was re-invested into the development of a camera. Yoshino was not a trained camera designer, but he had a dream and two common Japanese personality traits: persistency and tenacity. It took eight years to finalise the design and build the camera, which he named Zenza Bronica – the name being partly derived from his name Zenzaburo and the Japanese term for 120 medium format sized film, buroni (Brownie).

Originally that first camera that went on sale in 1959 was simply called Zenza Bronica and later renamed Zenza Bronica type D (Deluxe) and the follow on model type S (Standard). The Bronica D was the Japanese answer to the Hasselblad and in several ways outclassed the Swedish offerings.

It was a 6×6cm single-lens reflex camera similar to Hasselblad in design style and size, but this camera had various advantages over the original Hasselblad 1600F and 1000F with focal plane shutters:

• the reflex mirror and aperture are returned to the original position after exposure
• to allow intruding retro-focus lenses, the reflex mirror is not just flipped up but sliding down
• very long exposures up to 10 seconds using self-timer
• inserting a dark slide automatically detaches the back preventing accidental exposure
• the film can be loaded fully automatically just as with the Rolleiflex without aligning the start mark

The Zenza Bronica D

However, the Bronica D was not just a technical feat, it also was a very pleasing object to handle and showing Yoshino’s workshop’s experience in manufacturing fashion accessories. The chrome (actual stainless steel) elements and subtly curved lines gave it a delicate and precious appearance, not simply a metal box with a lens in front, despite the modular design. More information and pictures on Cameraquest.

The following Bronica Z and successor Bronicas, using large-coverage, high-quality Nikkor lenses, became instant successes. Bronica later introduced lenses of its own manufacture with its later camera designs.

Zenza Bronica Ltd. was eventually acquired by the lens manufacturer Tamron in 1998. Zenzaburo Yoshino died in 1988. As a response to the digital revolution Tamron discontinued the brand’s single-lens reflex models (SQ, ETR and GS) in October 2004. Bronica’s last model, the RF645 rangefinder camera, was discontinued in October 2005 and Tamron announced the termination of the Bronica brand and medium format cameras.

Bronica Classic Medium Format Cameras pages — the most comprehensive information in English on all things Bronica

Bronica Users Group on Yahoo! Groups

BRONICA Camera Manuals

Bronica D, C, S, S2, S2a, EC Group on Flickr

Maintainance of Zenza Bronica cameras: The son of Zenzaburo Yoshino established a company named “1st Technical Service”. They have many genuine Bronica parts. Electronical circuits also stocked. No parts for type D and type S. Tel +81-3-5390-2833 (Japan) [Note: not verified whether this still exists]

Tamron are still providing parts and service to the more recent Bronica medium format cameras. In case you need help, please take advantage of our Camera Parts & Repair Service.

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