Life Within Death – Nirai by Manabu Someya

“You shall go on a beautiful boat.” – Farewell to the dead on Yoron Island (Amami Islands, Japan) Put simply, a photograph reproduces what has been in front of the camera at the time of exposure, a moment in time, a selected fraction of reality. More philosophically, it also records what went on behind the camera in the photographer’s... 

Mitsuru Fujita Gallery

The collection of scenes that Mitsuru Fujita has assembled into the collection Zaisyo feature not a single discernible human figure. This hardly would seem something worth mentioning, for despite the relatively high population density of Japan, any photographer with a car and a willingness to leave the urban areas could find those vistas devoid of humans... 

The Built-Up Country, in Detail — Zaisyo

Zaisyo, by Mitsuru Fujita -- Published by Tosei-sha, May 2010 Review by Peter Evans for Japan Exposures. Z aisyo means something like the country or one’s country. The photographer is Mitsuru Fujita, and this is his second photobook. The book tells us that he was born in 1934, became a freelance photographer in 1961, set up a company called Fujitaman... 

Koichi Nishiyama Gallery

There was a forest near the house where I lived when I was a child. When the forest existed, I felt the connection with a deep part in the world there. However, the forest has since been destroyed, and only the process of the loss and its memory were kept in my mind. I am living in a place which is a little distant from there at the present day. When... 

Hideo Takiura’s Tokyo Products

Due in part to the heat, and in part from being extremely busy of late, I haven’t been able to take in as many photo exhibitions as I would like. However, when I received a postcard advertising Hideo Takiura’s latest show, “Tokyo Products”, I knew that this was one show I would make a special effort for. And I’m glad I... 

Interview with Shiyo Takahashi, Leica Ginza Shop

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... 

Miyuki Okuyama Gallery

Miyuki Okuyama, in her series Safe Playground that she has been working on, off and on, for the past six years, constructs pseudo-landscape scenes using miniature props. Shooting these with toy and pinhole cameras, these dark and moody scapes may bear little relation to the staid spaces of The Netherlands where she now makes her home, but they are perhaps... 

Framing Space in Japanese Photography

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... 

Shinya Arimoto Gallery

Don’t let his personal selection for this Japan Exposures gallery mislead you: Arimoto doesn’t only do street portraits. Visit his thoughtfully designed home page and you will find a good variety of photographs taken on the streets in Japan or other locations such as Tibet (recommended series “Why Now Tibet?”). What shines through... 

Mr. Zenza’s Rolls-Royce

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... 

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