japan exposures » Light Reading

The Deteriorating Condition of Silver in Ginza

Kurt — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:30:27 +0000

Eikoh Hosoe season at BLD Gallery in Ginza

In between jobs the other day I stepped in to the BLD Gallery in Tokyo’s Ginza district. Ginza is Tokyo’s High Street where all the fashion brands have their flagship stores. Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Shiseido, etc. are all here. During the 80s bubble, the area featured the highest real estate prices in the world.

That bubble has long since burst but it still retains its hoity toity air, and to be honest I’ve never felt entirely comfortable there, though I often go there and used to find it a fertile ground for shooting as well, back in the days when I actually took photos. It also happens to be a good place to take in photos, featuring a few good galleries in the area, and it used to be a camera fetishists dream with several used camera shops.

BLD Gallery is one of the newer spaces, going back just three or four years I believe. It’s on the eighth floor of a building that houses a Zara brand shop on the first floor, but fortunately the entrance to the elevator is on the side so I don’t feel so self-conscious about my rather less than foppish attire. Their shows feature established artists, particularly Daido Moriyama, but also including Toshio Shibata, Takuma Nakahira, Masato Seto, and Michael Kenna, and although they are not exlusively a photography gallery, that is what they exhibit in the main.

One thing about BLD is that their shows are always extremely well-presented. Whoever is curating their exhibits definitely seems to make the best of the space, which is one large-ish room and an awkward smaller room off to the side, in addition to a small bookstore/merchandise area. The Shibata show I saw there last Fall was simply exquisite, with large 40×50 inch prints deftly mixed in with 40 or so smaller pieces.

Currently on view is the first of a five-show Eikoh Hosoe retrospective which will run until May. The first installment features work from Kamaitachi, shot in 1965 and first exhibited in 1968, and collected in the 1969 limited edition photo book of the same name. Thankfully due to the republication of this book in 2009 by Aperture in the US and Seigensha here in Japan, more people have become familiar with this work, although sure enough some of the images have become iconic over the years.

In 1965 Hosoe accompanied Tatsumi Hijikata, who along with Kazuo Ohno basically founded the post-WWII Butoh dance movement — to Yamagata prefecture where Hosoe spent his youth (Hijikata himself was from Akita, the prefecture north of Yamagata).

From Kamaitachi, by Eikoh Hosoe

The resulting work is basically various photos of Hijikata interacting with the landscape or with the local residents in this rural part of Japan, ostensibly playing the part of a kamaitachi or “weasel-like demon who haunts the rice fields and slashes those he encounters with a sickle” according to Aperture’s description of the book. We see Hijikata perched on the fence-like structures used for drying straw, or traipsing through fields, sitting on the roadside with local farm workers, or interracting with what seem like other members of his troupe. (You can hear Hosoe — in English — briefly talk about the work in this Aperture video.)

The work is playful and irreverent, a departure from the dark brooding portraits of Yukio Mishima in Barakei, and perhaps my favorite part of Hosoe’s extensive oeuvre. There is a free-wheeling sense to the work — like much of what was being produced in Japan at the time (think Provoke) but yet in some of the portraits and landscapes, a classicism as well.

What’s particularly special about this BLD exhibit is that they are showing the same prints from when Hosoe first showed the work in March, 1968, under the title “An Extremely Tragic Comedy”, exhibited where else but in Ginza, at the Nikon Salon (still operating today in Ginza, in a newer location as both showroom and gallery space). That is to say, the very same pieces of paper that hung on the Nikon Salon walls 44 years ago. Not knowing this at first I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on — why the prints had this strange discoloration around the edges (due to the oxidation of the silver into silver ions), as well as these peeling circular labels with numbers on them that were affixed to the bottom corner of each print. (This .pdf from the Eastman House is a nicely thorough guide to gelatin silver print conditions.)

Having seen a few years ago some plantinum prints from Barakei that had been done by Hosoe and his son, I thought initially that these prints were a result of some vintage printing process, but the fact that they were just simply vintage was not a let down but in fact extremely interesting from a visual point of view, and fit in perfectly with the work and the emotional connection I was having as I walked around the room. And I found it refreshing that Hosoe could see the emotional value of these messy, deteriorated prints rather than getting hung up on pristine and prissy print quality.

One of my photos, taken in the Ginza in 2004

After leaving the gallery, I passed by one of the used camera shops I used to window shop at, marveling at how far prices had fallen for some of the cameras I would lust after in the past, like a Wista 4×5 Field camera, or the Fuji Papageorge Special 6×9. No customers were inside, and no other window shoppers either, for that matter, and I wondered how much longer for this world were shops like these. Amidst some vague self-promises to start shooting photos again, I continued on my way thinking about a fleet(ing) Hijikata and Hosoe’s deteriorating silver particles.

(Update: January 30, 2012) You can see some examples of the prints via a few pictures from BLD Gallery’s Twitter feed: here, here, and here.

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The New Social Photographer

Dirk — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:06:15 +0000

There are few good things that come out a natural disaster or other catastrophe, especially one that claimed many innocent lives. However, it would be far too dark a view to take and say that doom is all we see. Since all photographers are as much observers as they are human beings, by logic all photographers are observers of the human condition. So as long as there are humans left after a catastrophe, we can, even amidst death and despair, observe even the faintest of glimmers of positive humanity — somewhere.

It is lamented, that the response of photographers to the March 11 earthquake to date has been weak. Whether Japanese photographers are losing interest in people. I think some corrective thought is warranted.

First of all, what drives the expectation (or even, desire) for strong photography after a monumental natural disaster? Have we not seen enough fact reporting in the newspapers, the web or television? We well may have, but probably want to see a more personal view and feel that it would be more valid, less matter-of-fact, than the factual depiction of news reporting. We want the story behind the story, or perhaps even the non-story behind the story. Why? What purpose would it possibly serve? To help comprehend the hardship faced by the survivors, some of which have lost everything from material things to friends and family, or even a physical location that was called home? Yes, there is a story that could be told, even though it doesn’t have to, despite the expectation. It is a strong story, no doubt, not because of a skilled narrator, but due a scene already set by prior events. The story is so strong that only few will have the strength themselves to face it, but first they have to actually bother and then come back to tell the tale.

To suspect a loss of interest in people is missing the point. Photographers cannot exist without an interest in people, but it is the interest in other people that matters. Hiromi Tsuchida, born 1939, Kazuo Kitai, born 1944, Hiroh Kikai, born 1945, Rinko Kawauchi, born 1972, Masafumi Sanai, born 1968 — a pattern emerges. We see two totally distinct generations of artists: the Showa, post-war generation and their children of the Heisei period, grown up in material comfort and safety. Their views of the world are entirely different. The post-war artists saw themselves as elements of a social fabric and their view was outward, on society, its values and behaviours. The view of the photographer itself is a reflection of those values. It still is, only that the view direction has changed from outward to inward. Photographers are still interested in people, only that this time people refers primarily to oneself. And since photography is always a reflection, we can still deduce values and behaviours, only that it’s now done the other way round.

The above is not meant as a criticism. Rather it is an assessment on the change of the times, society, its values, priorities and photographers within it. Both approaches can be made to work, and both can fail and produce boring, irrelevant photographs.

Will “the most useful photographs to come out of this disaster not even be taken for years, because the scale of the destruction is so big”? Possibly, but I don’t expect it. Photographers will continue to chronicle their own lives. Unless there is direct personal connection with the affected areas and it is significant enough for the artist to care, we will simply return to what has been there before.

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The Tokyo Sky Tree as fait accompli

Kurt — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:42:02 +0000

Shintaro Sato with a small part of one of his new panoramas

The other day I took my 8-year old son with me to Photo Gallery International in Tokyo’s Minato Ward to see Shintaro Sato’s new Tokyo Sky Tree work, Risen in the East, which is now showing until February 25.

My son and I have had fun dabbling in creating panoramas with our respective iPhones — he “inherited” my old iPhone 3 when I upgraded to the iPhone 4 a year and half ago — and the great AutoStitch iOS app, so I thought seeing some physically printed panoramas might resonate with him, as well as the likely chance to meet Sato-san.

Although I have yet to see Sato-san’s new book, I of course was familiar with some of the new work from helping put together the gallery on this site. Yet the immediate take away when I entered the second-floor gallery space where the work was being exhibited was “Whoa, what a completely different experience to see these panoramas in person.”

Now this is a common and predictable reaction to seeing any work, I admit — it’s very rare for the real thing, as it were, to underwhelm the printed collection. But it did strike me that short of printing a book as a scroll or with pages that fold out, panoramas are at a particular disadvantage when it comes to conveying their message via more modestly-sized media like the photo book or an online gallery.

There are only nine or ten pieces in the entire show, but most are large and three pieces take up an entire wall to themselves. While I’ve never really been a fan of the trend for large canvases, the sizes here felt right and especially with two different Tokyo cityscapes on view, provided an almost infinite series of details to pore over. (Sato-san told me some of these photos are composed from over 20 individual shots, stitched together using PTGui).

One of my son's panoramas from a visit to the then under construction Tokyo Sky Tree in May, 2011

One of these details, and you’ll find it in all the photos, is the Tokyo Sky Tree satellite tower, which is the ostensible “subject” of the work. I have to admit that a couple of years ago, when I saw Sato-san’s first attempts to negotiate the subject matter of Tokyo Sky Tree, I had my doubts about whether this work was the right sort of follow-up to Tokyo Twilight Zone. At that point the tower was in its nascent stages of construction, and the photos were, well, photos of its construction. Verbalized, I could understand Sato-san’s interest in documenting this new — and ambivalently welcomed — addition to his Tokyo cityscape, but visually it was not very interesting. All the more reason why I was so blown away by what I saw at the show.

The difference between that early work and what Sato-san finally arrived at is that now there is a connection — a connection between this tower and the neighborhoods it looms over, and therefore a further connection between us as viewer and these photos. These photos really are not about the tower at all, I came to feel as I walked around the gallery, but about the cherry blossom viewing party, or Asakusa’s famed Sanja Festival, or kids playing soccer on a sandy pitch along the river on a Saturday afternoon. Whether obscured almost completely, as in the cherry blossom photo, or unmistakably centrally located as in the soccer photo, the Sky Tree isn’t the proverbial 900-pound godzilla in the room but simply a part of the landscape — a fait accompli if you will.

One of the elements of Sato-san’s previous Tokyo Twilight Zone series that I really responded to was how the photos placed themselves on that borderline between grand city landscape and intimate neighborhood portrait. In Risen in the East, Sato-san has I think gone even further in the direction of the neighborhood portrait. Here the residents no longer have to be assumed — they are here playing soccer, partying in the park, setting lanterns into the river. That Sato-san can achieve this, and still keep the 634-meter Tokyo Sky Tree in his sights, is not only a measure of his photographic achievement, but a larger statement that for better or worse, the tower is going to be with us for a long time to come.

Tokyo Sky Tree viewed from Asakusa, with the Asahi Beer headquarters in the foreground

After the exhibition, my son and I caught the subway to Asakusa to have sushi at a place we like there, and after coming out of the station there was Tokyo Sky Tree towering above us, seemingly. Although I’ve of course been seeing the tower for a couple of years now, this was the first time to see in in a few months, and the first time to see it more or less finished (it opens next month). For me it still has that out-of-character-ness to it, something I’m not quite used to. I wonder when, or if, I will come to view it as just present rather than omnipresent, but then again Tokyo isn’t my city in anything close to the way it is for Sato-san and millions of people. I’m a weekend tourist, at best, and as such can afford to keep it at bay for a bit longer. My son of course, like most kids I suspect, is enamored of it.

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Best Wishes for 2012

Dirk — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:01:05 +0000

We wish you a happy new year and all the best for 2012. As you have noticed, this site had been quiet for several months now. We appreciate the numerous emails and comments expressing the hope to see Japan Exposures going again. We want to make an effort to live up to that expectation. The events in Japan turned out to be only one of many in 2011: the Arab Spring and resulting disposal of a dictator in Libya, the European debt crisis etc. There was no shortage of events needing our attention.

Perhaps you also hear the reports about recovery and reconstruction in Japan. While these are encouraging, they also contain the desire to paint a positive picture when in reality many problems remain: the damage inflicted by earthquake and tsunami as well as widespread contamination by radioactive materials will weigh heavily on communities for years, if not decades.

Above all, however, stands the loss of life. Following suggestions from our customers, we added a voluntary option to donate as part of the sales of the MS Optical Super Triplet Perar 3.5/35 Mark II. The response has been very positive and I am pleased to report that Japan Exposures was able to collect a total of ¥430.000 (as of today approx. US$5590 / €4300), which was donated in full to a charity named Michinoku Mirai (Northern Region Future).

Michinoku Mirai was established by condiment maker Kagome, snacks producer Calbee and pharmaceutical company Rohto to provide funds for young people who were orphaned by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami to pay for university or post-secondary vocational school. According to the Health Welfare and Labor Ministry, about 1,500 youngsters aged 18 or less lost both parents in the disaster. Starting in March 2012, those who graduate from high school and wish to continue their education can apply for up to ¥3 million a year from the fund to pay for anything related to that education, including entry fees, tuition and supplies.

The three companies estimate that the fund will need about ¥200 million a year, and each one will start by contributing ¥30 million for the first year, with the remainder coming from solicited contributions. They will continue supplying the fund with money for 20 years, at which point children who were orphaned as infants by the disaster will have graduated from high school. The reason the fund was created is that there is no public support in Japan for the continuing education of orphans. When orphans reach the age of 18, they are on their own. Foster care ends at 18, and since in Japan there is very little in the way of what in the West are called scholarships — meaning education grants — orphans almost never attend university.

We hope that you will agree that this purpose is very worthwhile our support and thank you once more for your contribution.

Happy New Year!

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Supporting the Relief Effort

Kurt — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 05:39:29 +0000

The number of individuals and organizations that have stepped up the plate to assist financially and otherwise in the wake of the March 11th Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami is truly staggering. Curator Marc Feustel was quick to highlight some of these efforts on his eyecurious blog, and he has been updating it, so I fear this post is not only late in coming but mostly superfluous, but like assistance, there can’t be such a thing as too much in this case.

Zen Foto Gallery — Tokyo’s Zen Foto will be holding a photography exhibit and auction this weekend (March 25 – 27th) with all proceeds to go to Tohoku relief charities. Photographers based in Japan are encouraged to bring ready-to-display works to the gallery in Roppongi on the 25th and 26th. Prices will be set by the artists themselves. Those interested in participating are encouraged to contact the gallery by Wednesday March 23rd, but given the short notice it should be okay to just show up on Friday or Saturday with your piece(s). (Map). Contact Mark or Amanda for more information.

Charity Print Auctions — Charity Print Auctions is a Flickr group that was originally set up to support relief efforts following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, raising over £18,000. The group is now actively supporting Japan earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. The concept is simple — members of the group submit photos (one per day per user) and people can bid on the photo by committing to donate a certain amount to one of the recommended charities. When the highest bidder submits proof of the donation, the photographer will send the bidder the print.

Life Support Japan — The Wall Space Gallery in Seattle and Santa Barbara was very quick to set up an online photo auction and as of March 18th they had already raised $20,000 and had to temporarily ask artists to stop submitting works so they could catch up. They have also started a dedicated blog with information about their efforts as well as spin-off efforts, including this effort in the UK.

See Marc’s post for even more efforts. Also, while not photography-related, Jean Snow has compiled a list of various creative efforts being done to raise money. Other creative efforts you might want to support include Font Aid V, Artists Help Japan, the Poster Cause Project (more poster/print related efforts here), and Anime and Manga Bloggers for Japan.

The above images of flowers is from Japanese photographer Akira Gomi, who has offered up these and other images for “license-free” use in the hope that they will be used to create merchandise goods that can sold to raise money for earthquake/tsunami relief efforts.

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We’re shaken, but fine

Kurt — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 01:59:17 +0000

Both Dirk and I have been receiving a lot of emails from concerned friends of Japan Exposures, asking about our safety and that of our respective families in the wake of yesterday’s devastating earthquake and tsunami. The short answer is that all of us are fine even as we remain shaken, both physically and mentally. Even as I write this, some 18 hours after the quake, the incessant aftershocks are a constant reminder that nothing can be taken for granted.

We deeply appreciate the concern for our well-being that all of you have expressed. Thank you!

The above photo is from Dirk’s place. He has a few more at his Flickr photostream.

In accordance with the ongoing situation you may not get a speedy response from us as you are used to. We also are not yet sure about the situation of our suppliers and shipping carriers, but given our respective locations and distance from the areas affected worst, we do not expect not major mid-term issues. Nonetheless please be prepared for potential delays.

The 11th of March 2011 and following days will go down as a very dark period in Japanese history. Please extend your your thoughts and prayers to those affected.

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Not a bad picture on show

Dirk — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 07:56:10 +0000

Report from Camera and Photo Imaging Show 2011, Yokohama

At the risk of stating an utterly obvious and absolutely not new realization: it has become extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to take a bad photograph with contemporary cameras. At least technically speaking, there is very little that can still go wrong nowadays. Exposure metering is accurate, focus is on target, no excessive lags where you wait for the camera, popping colors, lenses for great image quality, cameras are small enough to not burden even a child and superb looking prints. We are privileged to have all this power available to. Nonetheless, in the context of making photographs, this is meaningless. We, the people behind the camera, are still in charge of picking things from the reality that surrounds us and no camera, sensor or printing paper will help you doing that.

Enough of the philosophizing, since a lot of people will just be interested in the gear, so here you have it.

Fujifilm X100

Everything you heard about it is true. It looks great, the image quality on the display prints is frighteningly good and the EVF overlay is a marvel. The camera is an attractive package and feels good in the hands. Now, I don’t want to be critical on something I have barely seen, let alone used extensively, but I have said that at the end of the day, this camera is just a compact point and shoot with a cool finder. I still think so, even though it is a very good one, perhaps the best one we have ever seen and may see for a while. Is it a game changer? Probably not and a lot of things will depend on how this camera behaves in constant use. The lens is surely brilliant and I doubt that the image quality of the sensor will be disappointing either.

Still, in the few minutes that I handled the camera I noticed some minor niggles: one, there are many controls and buttons, perhaps too many, especially on the back. The camera is not as small like most compacts, but it isn’t large either so the room to put these things is tight. You have a very generously sized screen and on the right several buttons and dial wheel. Only continuous use would tell whether these buttons could be accidentally pressed by handling the camera, large fingers or not, especially with one hand only. Bear it in mind.

The finder — yes, it is a revelation. That EVF overlay in an optical image is absolutely brilliant. A strange thing that I noticed, and I don’t know whether this will disappear in the production version or is something you can set in the options, when you half press the shutter the whole EVF display, lines and parameters, briefly disappear for a split moment (presumably focussing and metering). Personally I would find this a little irritating, because the frame lines are essential for composition and having them disappear or flicker in some way is a distraction, for me anyway. Lastly, and I am sure this can be turned off in the option, you’re composing and shooting while looking at a beautiful optical finder image with the great overlay and, bang, then you are presented with the image you just took displayed full size by means of the electronic finder. That’s an anti-climax.

The camera is slated for release on 5 March 2011 and the price is around ¥130.000 (almost $1600) and you do know that you can get used Leica M8 camera for little more, don’t you? Want it anyway?

Fujifilm GF670W

This wide angle version of the previously released GF670 will not genuinely surprise you. It has a very solid feel and is well-balanced, so comfortable to hold. In fact, the body is identical to the GF670, except where you previously found the bellows, there is now a lens bolted on which gives it a much more rigid feel. What surprised (and actually bothered) me, is that the lens’ focussing ribs that you are supposed to grab to turn the ring are not applied all the way around the lens barrel, only in two opposite positions as if you are supposed to turn this with two fingers and your hands should travel with the rings movement. That is impossible though and the rest of the ring is smooth and does not offer any grip so your fingers may slip. The booth attendant (funnily enough, the same gent as two years ago) pointed out to me that one is supposed to grab the lens from above with two fingers, but then I saw my own hand in the finder. An odd design decision.

Ricoh GXR Leica M mount module

Yes, you will be able to buy this after all and it should be fun. But then, it won’t turn your Ricoh into a Leica M. Still, great to have it of course and now on a par with the Micro-Four-Thirds and Sony E-Mount systems that let you use Leica M mount lenses via an adapter. You can feel that Ricoh loves photography, despite being a big Japanese conglomerate (that even makes gas meter for homes, as I have seen last week).

Cosina/Voigtländer

Wait a minute, could this whole show by Canon, Nikon and all have just been arranged to accompany a photo exhibition by Tom A?

Two of Tom’s prints are on display, amongst photos by others. Well done, Tom.

Of course, all of Cosina and Zeiss’ wares are out for display but I could not detect anything new or noteworthy. A little quiet there actually and none of the attractive show hostesses ubiquitous at other booths to photograph either.

Kenko C Mount digital camera

Not sure what to make of this, but it looks like a fun niche product: a digital camera with a native C mount (small format cine lenses) so you can use a wide range of legacy lenses without adapters or other fuss. If the image quality is OK and the price is right, I think this will do well and be very enjoyable. Ironically the camera is said not to offer any movie mode.

Pentax

Some fantastic prints on the wall at Pentax. A few years ago I remember feeling slightly underwhelmed with large prints from the 645D, but perhaps it is that printing technology has caught up with bringing out all the information that the images contain. The large panels, some so large that they are made up by a mosaic of four or more. Impressive.

Pentax have established themselves as the individualisable camera manufacturer, there does not seem an end to their ability to make non-standard versions of their cameras. A true logistical and manufacturing feat.

And yes, there will be a K-5 Silver Limited!

Shibakawa LED flash

Shibakawa are a OEM/ODM manufacturer of in- and off-camera flash units for most of the Japanese camera makers. What they are trying to do now is develop an LED light/strobe unit. Only a prototype was presented. What’s interesting is that you can daisy-chain small module units, for example to wrap around a lens or hood with velcro and then build your own ring flash — or a strip light if needed. Any shape is possible. At the moment the modules are still a little “large”, the rep says (not to me), but they should get smaller. A limitation is the low power, only a guide number of four so it is targeted at still life and macro setups where this should not be an issue or low power is even desirable. Also there is no wireless transmitter facility, but again this is not a problem in small setups. What’s very interesting is that you can address any single LED in the array and regulate its output depending on the situation, so you can have less light on one side closer to the subject (an issue in macro where you are very close to the subject, creating lighting imbalances) or create deliberate accents. The LEDs can emit strobe and also continuous light, so you can have a modelling light and use it for video too.

An interesting development to watch. It may come to market either under their own brand or via another maker’s name.

Hey, and I receive my first freebie, a pen, from a very friendly English speaking gentleman. Thank you and good luck to the project!

Canon, On-demand photo books

When I wrote my previous report two years ago, I lamented the lack of choice in domestic (Japanese) options to print on demand photo books and other things like calendars. Well, things have changed and we went from few choices to no choices at all. At least nothing was on display today, not even wedding albums, and this may not be the target audience here. Perhaps it is also that nobody is daring to take on the mighty Blurb, Lulu, MyPublisher etc. who have cornered the market. To compete with them you’d have to do what Japan isn’t generally too good at: create a user-friendly web site which is usable by anyone in the world (read: not cluttered in design and not only in Japanese language). Of course Canon would be the perfect candidate, as they have a powerful printing technology division. That’s not just your office photocopiers, but high-end image processing and on-demand printing lines that should be more than able to do what HP does for the others. However, what we get is a little of something: small-ish, single sized on-demand books for photos and text for 20 to 204 pages, accessible via Canon’s consumer portal Image Gateway, which also offers other post-capture services like image sharing. Of course that’s only in Japanese language, but to their credit not too bad an interface the last time I used it. I know Canon is very keen on expanding printing and trying out many ideas. The book looks decent enough quality, even the images, but it is not really a photo book in size and appearance. It would be ideal to print a diary-like affair, or even one’s blog with photos thrown in. In my opinion it is really more a text format book in terms of size and paper.

Best of the rest

Free lens cleaning at Tamron (thanks)

Large lenses at Sigma put any bazooka or other grenade launcher to shame. Try using those in front of the White House and get a free ride in a military or police vehicle!

Casio think that HDR should be elevated to HDR Art and devotes a large section of their booth to displaying, shall we say, unattractive prints created with the in-camera mode HDR Art.

That’s all folks, thanks for reading and until next time! And in case anyone sees Hans, please send him over to the camera bag section!

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Thousand Happy Moments

Dirk — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 12:05:00 +0000

When I was travelling in Europe in October I saw the author of a book being interviewed on television. He had accumulated a list of 1000 events or situations that would give you an emotional uplift or generally happy feeling, just to remind ourselves that within all the bad news we see there are also positive occasions, even though they can often be quite small and therefore pass unappreciated. The man is certainly an optimist!

Last week I was reminded of that book when experiencing two personal happy moments. Firstly, after a long struggle my son finally managed to ride a bicycle without any help or aids. There he was, wobbly but riding all on his own. A superb moment. Secondly, it was time for the annual JRP group photo show and I decided to go into my archives an edited a series of 12 photographs on the theme of “night” together, taken over a period of 5-6 years on film and digital. After struggling with editing, sequencing and printing (my first all-inkjet show) I was like the years before very happy to see the results hanging on the wall and being looked at by visitors.

The two moments are not as unrelated as one may think. I often think of my photos as almost child-like. When good work is strong enough, I feel that it can stand on its own and no longer needs me to explain or otherwise attend or foster it. The images take on a life and meaning on their own, independent from me, their creator. It’s almost as if they’re not made by me at all.

I was also reminded once more of how important the process of showing your work in public is. The thoughts that one needs to put into editing, sequencing and printing alone, which I mentioned above, will force you to reflect on your work in a way you normally wouldn’t. When putting your work in a finished, presentable format in front of people and perhaps being asked to comment on it is really a test for yourself whether you feel that you have done all you could to produce work to the best of your abilities. And before you think, “well, I regularly put galleries on my photo blog and Flickr sets to receive feedback”, it just isn’t the same, not even remote. I would not even count putting photos on the web as “publishing” nowadays, because it requires so little effort and, what’s more and that’s the key here, you will not be held accountable for what you have produced by anyone. It’s so easy to just say “well, that was just a small thing, I could do much better if I really wanted to”. Really? With electronic publishing, there will be no face to face discussions with your viewers, no “I wish had done this differently” thoughts when you cannot change anymore what’s hanging on the wall. This is where the true learning process lies, in feeling the excitement and also pains of creation. That’s not to say that electronic publishing has no merits, but there are certain ways to sneak out of your need to take responsibility for what you have done.

Invitation post card for the exhibition featuring one of my photos.

I used to be skeptical about the prevalent mode of operation of Tokyo’s photo galleries, where you essentially pay to rent the space for a week. There is no major hurdle to enter the game except the budget to pull it off. The same goes for photo book publishing. I have changed my mind. If anything, you do the exhibition for yourself, to progress and learn. You don’t need a workshop, just spend the money on the gallery space. During the preparations you will be running around seeking advice, and learn. Who wants to deliver something not their best when spending over $/€1000?

Put simply, everyone should be doing a gallery show or exhibition at least once a year. The venue almost does not matter, remember, this is mostly for yourself. Only a fraction of people interested in photography will ever do so. Those who do, I see as photographers, the rest are camera enthusiasts and people ‘interested in photography’, frequenting photo web sites and giving advice to others on how to “impove” their photography. Nothing wrong with that, just be aware of your own ambitions and where you stand right now.

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Books by Hiromi Tsuchida and Issei Suda

Kurt — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 13:09:05 +0000

(You can watch the video at a larger size at Japan Exposures’ page on Vimeo.)

Back by popular demand (I think!), I’ve created another video book review. The last proper one of these I did was over a year ago (somewhat ironic considering I created the first ones as a way to save the time it would take to do a proper written review), so it’s certainly about time to have another go at them.

This time I look at two books that collect material shot in the predominantly rural areas of Japan in the 1970s: Zokushin, by Hiromi Tsuchida, and Minyou Sanga, by Issei Suda. Both works — Zokushin a 2004 reprint of a bona fide classic (see Vartanian/Kaneko, Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ’70s, p. 192-196), Minyou Sanga a relatively recent publication of source material shot in the late 70s — were part of a distinct trend among Japanese photographers such as Daido Moriyama, Shomei Tomatsu, Yutaka Takanashi, Masatoshi Naito and Kazuo Kitai, to name a few, who explored subjects and landscapes far removed from the urban centers of Japan.

As I explain in my commentary on the video, both books ostensibly look at the festivals and rituals of Japan, particularly in rural areas where festivals and folk traditions continue to this day to exert a strong influence and sense of community. Nevertheless, they are as far from a “The Festivals of Japan” coffee table book sensibility as you are likely to find. While these festivals are the backbone of both books, I would argue that the books are much more portraits of people and communities trying to maintain an identity and connection to the past amidst a rapidly developing and urbanized Japan of the 70s.

俗神
Zokushin
Photographs by Hiromi Tsuchida
Revised edition, published in 2004 by Tosei-sha; hardcover with dustcover; 240 pages, 115 b/w plates; 30cm x 30cm; photo captions, afterword essay by Kazuhiko Komatsu, cover flap reprint of 1976 text by Toshinobu Yasunaga, and Tsuchida biography — all in English and Japanese; Tsuchida’s short text on the occassion of the reprint in Japanese only. (Please note that obi shown in the video is no longer available as per the artist’s request.)

民謡山河
Minyou Sanga
Photographs by Issei Suda
Published in 2007 by Tosei-sha; softcover with dustcover; 212 pages, 202 b/w plates; 19cm x 26cm; the book’s colophon is in both English and Japanese, but Suda’s two-page essay on the background of the project is in Japanese only. The photos are not captioned.

Both Zokushin and Minyou Sanga are available in the Japan Exposures bookstore.

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「ウメップ」(Umep) — Ume Kayo Experience at Omotesando Hills

Dirk — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:03:40 +0000

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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