Shinya Arimoto was born in 1971 in Osaka. He won the No.35 Taiyo award in 1997 and set up TOTEM POLE PHOTO GALLERY in 2008. Arimoto has been photographing and exhibiting work since 1994. Currently teaching photography at the Tokyo School of Visual Arts, he has supervised and lead the artist-run Totem Pole Photo Gallery since founding it in 2008.

John Sypal is an American photographer who has lived in Japan since 2004, and joined Totem Pole in 2010.

Please also see this and this special gallery with more images by Shinya Arimoto.

Japan Exposures: 私達は新宿近辺で何回か偶然に会っていますね。有元さんは毎日カメラを首から下げて撮影してるというイメージです。このやる気はどこから生まれてきますか？

We’ve randomly run into each other many times in Shinjuku over the years. My image of you is that you’re always out with your camera around your neck photographing. Where does this desire come from?

Shinya Arimoto: 都市の路上は飽きることがないです。同じ場所を歩いていても、すれ違う人は毎日違う。その一瞬一瞬を見ていたいという欲望があります。

I never get tired of the streets of the city. Even though I walk the same streets, it’s different people passing every day. I have a desire to look at each moment as it happens.

JE: それは素敵な言葉だけど、他の人達も同じことを考えるでしょう（笑）。有元さんは言葉だけではなく、実際に行動していると思います。一ヶ月に何日間「撮影」をしていますか？　大体何時から何時まで？　一日に何本ぐらいのフィルムを撮影しますか？

That’s a common sentiment about shooting on the streets but what’s different about you is that you’re really out there all the time making work. About how many days a month do you shoot? What kind of hours?

SA: 他の仕事が無ければ、基本的には毎日撮影に行きます。去年の夏などは全く仕事がなかったので、本当に毎日撮影していました。正午頃に新宿に着いて、日が暮れるまで撮影しています。なので撮影時間は季節によって変化します。
私の場合、街で出会った人に声をかけて撮影することが多いので、まず大切なのは撮りたい人と出会う事が重要です。これは偶然性の問題でもあるので、その確率を上げる為に多くの時間を〈街にいる〉ことに費やしています。

If I’m not at work, I’m going to shoot every day. When I’m not teaching, such as last summer, I was out there every single day. I arrived in Shinjuku around noon, and shot until sunset. The time I am able to photograph varies depending on the season though. In my case I often communicate with those who I photograph on the streets so it’s important that I just get out there to meet who’s out there. Depending on who I meet depends on random encounters so in order to increase my chances I need to increase the amount of time I spend out photographing in the city.

JE: 一日に何本ぐらいのフィルムを撮影しますか？　また一ヶ月間ではどのぐらいの数になるでしょうか？

How many rolls of film do you shoot a day? A month?

SA: 一日に10本撮る日もあれば、全く撮れない日もある。平均すると一ヶ月で50本ぐらいでしょうかね。

Some days it is not possible to shoot at all, other times I’ll shoot 10 rolls a day. The average is probably about 50 rolls a month.

JE: プライバシーの問題は、現在のストリートフォトグラファーにどのような影響をあたえていますか？
How do privacy concerns affect street photographers today?

SA: 社会的に見ると、プライバシーの問題は時と共に重要になってきていると感じています。
しかし個人対個人で向き合った時、その問題は社会的な問題というよりはむしろお互いの問題へと変化します。私の場合、相手に許可をもらってから撮影することが多いので、トラブルにはなりにくいようです。

From society’s standpoint privacy concerns have been growing more important over time. But when you interact with people one on one on the streets it’s less about society and more about individuals. Since I am often able to interact with my subjects and get their permission before I photograph them I personally haven’t had much trouble with privacy issues.

JE: ストリートで写真を撮ってる人にはどのような責任があると考えますか？

What responsibility does a street photographer need to keep in mind with their subjects?

SA: 撮らせていただいたからには、自分の望む作品に仕上げる事。私自身はネガティブなイメージが好きではないので、作品が観客にそのように捉えられないように注意を払っています。

When I’ve been granted the right to make the photograph I want to match in respect the desire I have to make the work as well as I can. Personally I don’t like photographs that are negative, and I take care so that I don’t catch my subject in that sort of way.

JE: 仕事についてですが、写真学校での講師の仕事以外にコマーシャルの撮影もしてますか？

In addition to teaching photography, do you do much commissioned photography as well?

SA: 20代は仕事の撮影も積極的にしていましたが、今はほとんどしていません。以前から付き合いのあるクライアントから依頼があれば行っている感じです。

When I was in my 20′s and 30′s, I did commercial work, but now not so much. If I do it’s by request from a former client from a previous relationship.

JE: I’d like to talk about your teaching experience. What do you feel is the most important part of photographic education?

「有元先生」につい少し聞きたいです。写真の教育において一番大切なのはどのような事でしょうか？

SA: 「写真」とひとことで言っても、その内容は多岐にわたります。様々な写真のあり方を伝えた上で、各個人が目指すべき道を指し示す必要があると思っています。私のゼミ（写真作家専攻）ではテーマやコンセプトの設定や、自作を言葉にすることを大切にしています。技術、知識、経験、の三つの柱の中で「経験」を積むことを重要視します。

Even a though “photography” is a simple word, the content of the term is wide-ranging. In addition to lecturing about the various ways photographs are made and work, it is necessary to help students find their personal way of working that they should aim for. In my classes students need to value the setting, theme and concept of their photographs and also be able to articulate about it in their own words. To gain experience one needs to understand the three pillars of technology, knowledge and understanding.

JE: なるほど。ビジアルアーツの学生は他の学校の学生よりも積極的にストリートスナップを行っているのではないでしょうか？　現在のアート世界ではスナップ写真あるいはストリートフォトは主流ではないが、その事についてどう思いますか？

I see. I get the impression that Visual Arts students do more “street photography” than students at other schools. It seems though that “street photography” is not so popular in the Art World now though…

SA: 東京のビジュアルアーツの学生もストリートスナップしているのはごくわずかです。写真作品が美術作品と認められてゆく流れの中で、写真作品でもコンセプトを示すことが重要となっています。確かに現在のアートの世界ではストリートフォトグラフィーは少ないですが、ストリートフォトグラフィーにおいてもコンセプトを示すことが必要ではないでしょうか。

The number of students at Visual Arts shooting on the streets is negligible. As photography flows more and more into the Art realm, one’s concept has become more important. In the current world of Art there are very few street photographers- so it seems that I think that conceptualism is important now even in street photography.

JE: 有元さんの写真のConceptは何だと思いますか？

What do you feel your concept is?

SA: 「ariphoto」のシリーズのコンセプトは「路上を彷徨いながら、変遷を続ける都市のなかにプリミティブな生命の営みを探し求める。」です。私は都市も人間という生物の作った、一つの生態系だと考えています。生き物としての人間と、その住処としての都市が写真に現われるように工夫して作品をつくっています。また大きなテーマとしては「人間とはなにか？」という疑問が常にあります。かつてチベットの広大な自然の中で、その自然と闘いながら、またそこから恩恵を受けながら生きる人々を撮影してきました。そして今は東京で、その都市機能の恩恵を受けて生きる人々を撮影しています。その両者のなかに、人間としての共通項を見つけたいと思っています。

The concept of my “ariphoto” series is to “Wander the streets seeking out an unrefined or rudimentary, even primitive, kind of life among the city that is always in transition.” I believe that the human organism is of the city and it’s all part of one ecosystem. I create these photographs which formulate that the environment and habitat of man is the city. Of course there’s always the big question “What is Man?”. I have photographed people both struggling against but also benefiting from the vast nature of Tibet. Now I photograph people struggling against but again also benefiting from their environment here in Tokyo. I think that among the two, I’m interested in finding common denominators as human beings.

JE: 最近インターネットの世界ではストリートフォトが再び注目されているそうです。ストリートフォトはこれからどこに向かうべきでしょうか？。新しいことを産み出してゆくべきですか？。それとも「新しいこと」は必要ないと思いますか？

There’s been a resurgence interest, at least online, in “Street Photography”. Is there any place that “Street Photography” can or even needs to go in the future? Is there anything new that this kind of photography can do, or is “new” even important anymore?

SA: 新しい試みはもちろん必要だと思いますが、新しければそれでよいという訳でもない。過去の作品をリスペクトしながらもエピゴーネンにならないように、常に挑戦的であることが大切です。インターネットの世界では多くの人が挑戦的な作品を発表していることに期待が持てます。まだそれは萌芽のようなものかも知れませんが、その中から突出した作品が出てくることにより、今後大きな潮流になってゆくことと信じています。

I think there’s importance in attempting new things, but just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s good. Photographing while respecting the work which has been done before without becoming an inferior imitator is a very important challenge. Regarding the internet, I have an expectation that challenging photography will continue to be shared online. It might still only be something like a sprout, but I believe that from all these pictures a greater trend will follow.

JE: 「挑戦的な作品」という言葉は人によって捉え方が違うと思います。有元さんにとって「挑戦的な作品」とはどのようなものでしょうか？

How would you classify “Challenging Photography”? It seems that this could vary widely from person to person…

SA: アイディア、行動力、テクノロジーの全てにおいてです。特にインターネットの世界ではテクノロジーの進歩が目覚ましい。
例えば従来の「決定的瞬間」のような写真は、高解像度ムービーをキャプチャーする方法に変わっていくでしょう。

It concerns the idea, movement, technology, all of these things. Especially with the internet, there’s been remarkable progress with technology. For example, with “Decisive Moment” photos, they’ll probably be come to be captured through high resolution video.

JE: ですが、有元さんの撮影方法はかなり伝統的でしょう．．．。　暗室でプリントして、マットに入れて、フレームをギャラリーの壁に貼って展示している。

But you stick with some pretty traditional gear for your own photographs… Not to mention you print in the darkroom, mat your prints, and hang them on the walls of a gallery.

SA: 暗室＝伝統的、デジタル＝挑戦的　とは違うと思います。新しいとか古いとかいう概念は、ある程度時間が経てば意味をなさなくなります。
私はこの7年間に23回新作の展示を行いました。もちろんこれは今後も続けてゆきます。手法はこそは新しいものではないが、自分にとってそれは挑戦的な試みであります。

I don’t agree with the idea that the darkroom equals “tradition” or that digital equals “challenge”. As time passes the concept of “old” or “new” has less meaning. Over the past seven years I’ve held twenty-three solo exhibitions of my work. Of course I plan on continuing with this. I’m not after a new approach, the main challenge is with myself.

JE: 写真生活や日々の撮影を継続させる為に重要な事はなんでしょうか？

What encourages you in your work to keep you going?

SA: 街に出て撮影をし、ギャラリーで定期的な発表をすることは、私にとっての日常になりつつありますので特別な思いはありません。
しばらくはこのようなスタイルにこだわってゆきたいと思っています。

The cycle of shooting out on the streets, then exhibiting the work in the gallery is what keeps me interested. By now these actions are so engrained I don’t differentiate photography as something separate from my daily life. This is the lifestyle which I’m going to continue living.

Photographing strangers in public is neither new, nor does it deserve our increased attention or respect, especially when it is obvious that the photographer has no real interest in the subject except as a means to get the next best 15 seconds of fame and bizarrely unreal looking decisive moment. What Shinya Arimoto is presenting here could not be more different. The photos show that an interaction between photographer and subject must have taken place before and during which the photographs were made. Arimoto does not steal the moment while passing a subject and never shall the two meet again; instead he engages on a fair exchange, respectful and sustainable so that an ensuing photographic encounter would not appear unreasonable to either side.

Please also see this interview with the photographer by photographer John Sypal.

Shinya Arimoto was born in 1971 in Osaka. He won the No.35 Taiyo award in 1997 and set up TOTEM POLE PHOTO GALLERY in 2008. Arimoto has been photographing and exhibiting work since 1994. Currently teaching photography at the Tokyo School of Visual Arts, he has supervised and lead the artist-run Totem Pole Photo Gallery since founding it in 2008.

Please also see this and this special gallery with more images by Shinya Arimoto and an interview with the photographer by photographer John Sypal.

Photo by Taiji Arita. Courtesy of Gallery 916.

Whenever I stumble upon, through old books or more often than not these days online, photographers of the past that were previously unknown to me, I feel a heightened sense of excitement. Excitement is of course common to the discovery of new up-and-coming photographers, but there’s an added thrill to come upon photographers who for one reason or another weren’t on my radar, yet who amassed long careers, were published, exhibited, written about at one time. It’s as if they were right under my nose but I went right when I should have gone left, or put the book back on the shelf instead of flipping one more page, leaving them to wait a bit more in obscurity.

A couple of weeks ago I clicked one more link on a web page and discovered Taiji Arita, who passed away last year at the age of 70. Arita (1940-2011) was a commercial and freelance photographer who had studied under Yasuhito Ishimoto and had worked in the 1960s at the Nippon Design Center advertising agency alongside other well-known photographers like Yutaka Takanashi and Hajime Sawatari. Arita would continue working commercially as a photographer through the 70s and 80s, but eventually turned his creative energy to painting and woodworking, moving permanently to the United States in 1991 and spending the last 20 years of his life there without returning to Japan.¹

The famed Camera Mainichi editor Shōji Yamagishi encouraged Arita’s creative photography and from 1969 – 1975 he worked on the series of family portraits that would eventually be published over 13 issues of Camera Mainichi from May 1973 to September 1974 under the title “First Born”. The photos featured his Canadian first wife Jessica, and eventually the son Cohen they had as well. Now, the extended body of this work is being shown at Gallery 916, a relatively new exhibition space for photography in Tokyo. (If you’re in the city, the exhibition runs until December 28.)

[Please see the accompanying article about Gallery 916. — Editor]

I found the exhibition at Gallery 916 a bit hard to get into initially — the large exhibition space of the gallery combined with the relative smallness of the prints certainly was detrimental here, as was the fact that the early work in the series had a bit too much hippy-dippy-ness for me. (I kept conjuring up scenes from Zabriskie Point, or closer to home, Ikko Narahara’s Celebration of Life (1972)). However, as Arita began to place his wife in more contrived setups, and particularly when their newborn son began to be included, the series started to lose its late 60s trappings, becoming less a celebration of the body and sexuality and familial-ity and more a carefully constructed exploration of a complex triumvirate, Arita the unseen member we end up feeling we know as well as his wife and son. It is those images where the pose itself — that of his family-cum-models, the props, the conceptual thought — and the messy intimacy of family, are indistinguishable.

Photo by Taiji Arita. Taken from the accompanying catalog.

The photos where the son takes center stage are especially powerful, though not without an accompanying irritation at Arita for playing on our emotions. In one photo we see the baby boy in his carriage at the edge of the frame, while the background is a barren landscape with what looks like a massive concrete “A” on fire a seemingly unsafe distance away — with only some of his mother’s winter coat visible to let us know he’s not alone. (In fact we reasonably know he’s never alone — after all his father is taking the photo.) In another he’s in his child seat, this time mother nowhere to be seen — though one has to look carefully, for Arita loves the subtle inclusion of figures through reflections and shadows — and almost completely obscured by a curtain that looks to have blown on top of him. The image is at once serene, the translucency of the curtain showing a swaddled, calm toddler, and violent, the curtain ready to strangle a trapped, defenseless boy.

Amidst so many dark, carefully crafted photos, the most affecting image for me is one of the relatively few color ones in the series, a photo of real aching and tender beauty. Jessica is outside of the house in a rustic setting, hands on the glass window, looking in on the sun-dappled room as her baby boy is caught mid-crawl, his oversized head looking away, but with an expression almost uncannily similar to his mother’s. She temporarily outside her life, outside her model-ness, her motherhood — we can’t even be sure she’s at that moment actually looking at her child, so deeply in thought she seems — gazing in on a life (her’s, his) already beginning to recede away from her.

Photo by Taiji Arita. Courtesy of Gallery 916.

The critic Kotaro Iizawa has written an excellent introduction to the exhibition which the gallery has made available on their site in both Japanese and English. Iizawa speaks to what must have been a creative relationship fraught with conflicting roles, especially as the series entered its later period:

Particularly among the later “First Born” shots are a number marked by a palpable tension, and an excessively staged look in reaction to it, to the extent that some of the images verge on the painful. Conversely, the feat of strength required to negotiate such a tightrope of emotions is perhaps the series’ greatest attraction.

According to the gallery, the original intention was to mount Arita’s own prints from the 1970s. However, they were deemed not sufficiently preserved enough for an exhibition of this size.² Instead, in an interesting twist, photographer Yoshihiko Ueda, who along with G/P Gallery director Shigeo Goto serves as Curatorial Director of 916, and who had served as an assistant to Arita in the early 80s before striking out on his own (he refers to him as “sensei” in a note in the exhibition catalog), took it upon himself to reprint the photographs that ended up in the exhibition. Ueda’s personal dedication to this task is of course admirable, but not necessarily dilemma free. He is not a hired craftsperson approaching this with a detached professionalism, but rather as a successful photographer with his own distinct vision mounting a show of the prints by his former mentor in a gallery he co-curates. “He was a photographer I loved,” writes Ueda.

Quinault is perhaps Ueda’s best known work outside of Japan, shot in the early 90s in the Quinault Rain Forest west of Seattle. It is not taking anything away from the work to describe it as one that works with limited tonal variations. His black and white portrait work that I have seen has a similar flatness to it, faces and figures barely raising themselves off the paper they’re printed on.

The prints on show at Gallery 916 do seem to have a distinctive Ueda-esque quality to them, a lovely subtlety of tonality to them where the figures, the faces, and above all the small details in the scenes are slowly discovered by the viewer over time. Not having seen the original Arita prints, nor any of the Camera Mainichi issues the work originally appeared in, I can’t comment on whether Ueda has enhanced the original work or hindered it in some way — whether, in the parlance of adaptation, Ueda has been faithful to the original, and to his sensei.

To speak to this tangling of sensei and student roles, and the intermingling of styles, it might be illustrative to look at Ueda’s series at Home that was shot from 1993-2005 and collected in the 2006 book of the same name. Spanning 13 years, from when he married actress Karen Kirishima through to the birth of their 4th child, Ueda documented his family. Document is perhaps too strong — these were family snapshots first and foremost (albeit taken by a very accomplished photographer). As Ueda writes,

The compulsive quest of my youth for total perfectionism, power and beauty was giving way to a need to engage with the uncontrollably boisterous glow of daily life, to notice, accept and above all to treasure the ordinary yet unrepeatable events before my eyes, to capture small slices of the fun.

Yoshihiko Ueda — at Home. Published in 2006 by Little More.

It was only much later that the work formed itself into a series as such and became a book only at the behest of a publisher. There certainly isn’t the edge you find in many of Arita’s photos, and yet for all of Ueda’s “boisterous glow of daily life”, it isn’t without sadness and pain. (This comes through much more in the heavily edited set of photos presented on Ueda’s site than it does in the far larger selection of photos presented in the book, it has to be said.) But it isn’t anything remotely like the contrived and artful darkness we find in Arita’s series.³

So in terms of intention and approach, Arita’s and Ueda’s two “family” series couldn’t be further apart. Nor is it a given that Ueda was in any overt way conscious of his mentor’s earlier series as he took his family snaps. But the terrain is common enough to both to make one intrigued as to how Ueda must have felt as he negotiated this re-printing of Arita’s “First Born”, no doubt with the best intentions of paying homage to his former sensei and doing the original work “justice” — another loaded term like “faithful” that implies a value judgment.

Sacrosanct notions of “original” and “faith” seem misplaced here. Rather than sifting through the messy intersections of influence and inspiration, reproduction and reworking, I prefer to view this convergence of styles, themes, and teacher-pupil roles more as a collaboration, unwitting obviously on the part of one — or perhaps both, for this balancing act could not have been easy for Ueda, who says as much when he writes that he “battled for almost two months in the darkroom with photos left by my teacher.”

In his essay Iizawa expresses regret that Arita never really went further than his “First Born” series, or pursued photography in any meaningful way in subsequent years, while at the same time wondering if “the very absence of such a follow-up offering could also be what allows this series to retain its rare brilliance.” That last bit seems overly fanciful to me, suggesting as it does that Arita spared us from being let down by ending on a high note. That he didn’t do more with photography is perhaps regrettable, but rather selfish on our part. By all accounts Arita suffered no similar regrets as he channeled his creativity into painting and woodworking, leaving his “first born” to the past as he moved on, both in the context of family — we know he remarried in 1984 — and art. Fortunately for us, this hasn’t stopped the work from being re-discovered, or discovered anew, and his former pupil Yoshihiko Ueda deserves our gratitude for his part in that.

_{1. This period of Arita’s career is covered in a recently-published book entitled PURE – Taiji Arita in California: Life and Work.}

_{2. Incidentally, the “First Born” portfolio of 68 photographs is owned by Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan, as part of their permanent collection.}

_{3. I think an argument — and further investigation — could be made about the difference in tone having something to do with Arita’s first wife being a Canadian, an “other”, whereas Ueda’s wife is not only Japanese, but a well-known actress at that.}

Gallery 916 — even the entrance feels spacious.

The other day I was surfing online and I came across a new to me photography gallery just by chance. I was intrigued because one, it had earlier this year staged a Ralph Gibson exhibition, and two, I noticed that Yoshihiko Ueda, who is a well-established photographer both commercially and artistically, was serving as co-curator along with Shigeo Goto, a figure I’m familiar with through the G/P Gallery in Ebisu where he serves as Chief Director as well as a previous association with Gallery Punctum Photo+Graphix Tokyo(sadly no longer open). Seeing as their upcoming exhibition was work by a Japanese photographer I had not previously heard of, it seemed the opportune time to tick off two boxes in one shot.

Gallery 916 — The building exterior. Look for the shell.

Opening its doors in February of this year, Gallery 916 is in the district of Tokyo called Hamamatsuchō, an area not normally associated with galleries. The space is on the 5th floor of a big warehouse-y building, and were it not for a small sign for the gallery near the entrance to the building, I would have assumed I was in the wrong place. It’s quite common in places like San Francisco or New York to have galleries in these kind of industrial warehouse-type spaces, but not all that common here in Tokyo.¹ The gallery space itself is huge — 600-square-meters apparently — leading me to wonder if it isn’t now the largest photography gallery in Tokyo.

Though admittedly it’s not a place most would consider warm and intimate, especially on the cold and rainy day I visited, the gallery felt heartwarming somehow, knowing that such a large and relatively unadorned, unpretentious space was being given over to photography.

Gallery 916 — The building entrance, with hard to spot gallery sign.

In size it felt like one of Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography’s exhibition spaces, but sans the obligatory museum shop, coat check, silent black-suited watchers making sure you don’t touch anything, and most importantly, any admission charge, much more relaxing.

Exhibitions held at the gallery so far have been one-artist shows running between six to eight weeks in duration. Both the Gibson and Arita exhibitions have been accompanied by substantial exhibition catalogs normally not seen from galleries², and in its catalogs and on its clean, well-designed website, English translations of critical essays and biographical information are given equal footing with the Japanese. (Well-translated English it should be noted, which is far from a given in Japan). [Both the Ralph Gibson and Taiji Arata exhibition catalogs are available in the Japan Exposures Bookstore.]

Of course such a large space does not come without its challenges, number one I’m sure being to remain a financially viable concern for its backers. But there are challenges for the Ueda/Goto curating team as well.

Gallery 916 — The main room.

On view when I visited was a series of photos by the relatively obscure Taiji Arita from the late 60s/early 70s, for whom Ueda once served as an assistant. The prints were not large, and it felt a struggle sometimes for the photos not to be completely dominated by the space. No doubt the curators are aware that a space this large will not be appropriate for just any work, and care will be needed to select photography that works best in the space. Alternatively, perhaps occasionally the space will need to be changed — closing off the two spaces in the back that lead off the main hall, for example — for some exhibits.

[See our accompanying review of the Taiji Arita "First Born" exhibition being held at Gallery 916. — Editor]

Gallery 916 — Lots of room to play with.

In its first year, two of the five exhibitions were of Ueda’s work. This may well be part of the arrangement, for all I know. But certainly from the neutral’s perspective, one will hope that this is more a gallery served by Ueda’s creative vision rather than the other way around.

That said, having co-curators of Ueda and Goto’s standing, approaching the gallery from the differing perspectives of photographer and curator respectively, leaves what appears to be have been an excellent start in good stead. It remains to be seen what will come in 2013, but I for one am looking forward to it.

_{1. The Kiyosumi Gallery Complex, which houses Taka Ishii, Hiromi Yoshii and ShugoArts, among others, is an obvious exception.}

_{2. The old Min Gallery and the current Zen Foto Gallery being two worthy exceptions that come to mind.}

Hidekazu Maiyama is a Tokyo-based photographer who was born in 1962. Maiyama graduated from Kyushu Sangyo University in 1980. He makes his living as a commercial photographer photographing for mainstream magazines. The personal work series that this image is taken from was photographed in Berlin, Germany in winter 2011/12. It was inspired by the now classic film Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders. The film is about invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of the human inhabitants and comfort those who are in distress. Even though the city is densely populated, many of the people are isolated and estranged from their loved ones. (Wikipedia). The photos aim to take the viewpoint of angels and bring the idea of the film into the contemporary.

The whole series will be shown at Gallery E&M nishiazabu from 6-24 November.

MS Optical Sonnetar 50/1.1 @ f1.4, Leica M9 JPG, photo by Ming

We are pleased to announce the release of the MS Optical Sonnetar 50/1.1 lens in Leica M mount.

The lens is available for order now in our web shop. Orders will be served in the order received. Please note that as usual there might be a waiting period between receiving your order and fulfilment, due to the nature of the lens and its production. Shipping is scheduled to commence on or around 10 Oct 2012.

Japan Exposures has over seven years of experience of selling MS Optical products, including several hundred of Super Triplets 35mm and 28mm. This includes efficient and cost-effective shipping, handling of after-sale warranty and repairs and even intra-EU shipping to save on import duty. Thank you for your continued support.

The Sonnar type is a photographic lens originally designed by Dr. Ludwig Bertele in 1924 and patented by Zeiss Ikon. It was notable for its relatively light weight, simple design and fast aperture.

The name “Sonnar” is derived from the German word “Sonne”, meaning sun. It was given this name because its large aperture was much greater than many other lenses available at the time.

Compared to Planar designs the Sonnars had more aberrations, but with fewer glass-to-air surfaces it had better contrast and less flare. Though compared to the earlier Tessar design, its faster aperture and lower chromatic aberration was a significant improvement.

Source: Wikipedia

Here are its key features:

• 5 elements in 4 groups Sonnar formula lens
• Compact design, weight 190g, 220g with hood (36mm long, 55mm diameter filter thread)
• Premium quality Tantalum glass, superior to Trium and Lanthanum glass with best refractive qualities
• 14 blade aperture for smooth and pleasing bokeh (Made in Germany by Otto Niemann Feinmechanik GmbH, Berlin)
• Minimum focus distance 0.8m
• ALL six glass surfaces multicoated, 97% light transmission
• Initial lot of 300 lenses, designed, manufactured and hand-assembled in Japan by Mr Sadayasu Miyazaki
• Native Leica M mount

The MS Optical Sonnetar 50/1.1 is available now in our web shop.

Mr Miyazaki of MS Optical, a small independent manufacturer of lenses and camera accessories, has also added a world first: positioned with the rear element of the lens is a “coma adjustment ring”. Coma (aka comatic aberration) in an optical system refers to aberration inherent to certain optical designs or due to imperfection in the lens or other components which results in off-axis point sources such as stars appearing distorted, appearing to have a tail (coma) like a comet (Wikipedia). The coma control has the distance settings infinity, 4m, 2m and 1m (up to 1m setting should only be used with mirror less cameras or cameras with live view). As it is well known, early Sonnar lenses encountered issues with aberration when used wide open. The coma adjustment control allows to select the subject distance and slightly repositions the rear element to compensate for the selected focus distance by reducing spherical aberration. This also changes the focal length very slightly (only by fractions of a millimetre). Alternatively one can set it into the opposite of optimum direction for a soft focus look that makes Sonnar portraits so attractive.

Spherical aberration is also often dubbed as a “friend of bokeh” as the very soft rendering will pronounce out of focus areas even more. The famous Voigtländer Universal-Heliar, introduced in 1926, incorporated the ability of the central lens element to be adjusted by the photographer, thereby introducing varying amount of spherical aberrations. Its images are legendary.

This is what Carl Zeiss say themselves about their C-Sonnar T* 1,5/50 ZM, similar can be expected for the Sonnetar 50/1.1:

This lens design helps to achieve pictures with a special artistic touch. This lens ‘draws’ your subject in a fine, flattering manner and is therefore ideally suited for portraiture. It renders a sharpness that is slightly rounded, being less aggressive than in contemporary lens designs, but at the same time not soft in its rendition.

Many famous portraits of glamorous and prominent people during the 1930s used this technique to great effect. These images are characterized by portraying the person in a shining, nearly celestial way. This effect is very well balanced and not exaggerated; therefore many viewers see it in a subconscious way. The trained observer, however, understands the underlining technique and enjoys the results.

This lens design exhibits some additional effects, which should be understood to achieve the maximum benefit from the C-Sonnar T* 1.5/50 ZM:

Because of the above mentioned classical characteristic of the lens the best focus position in the object space can not be kept exactly constant for all f-stop settings. The passionate photographer might notice a slightly closer best focus in his pictures than expected. When stopping down the lens to f/2.8 or smaller this effect is minimized, so the focus position will be as expected. In order to balance the performance at full speed and other f-stop settings the lens is adjusted with above described characteristic.

Just like MS Optical’s lens conversions, please be aware that this lens is slightly different in operation from “normal” mass-manufactured lenses. For example, the aperture scale rotates with the whole lens barrel when the lens is focussed and there are no aperture click stops. This is not a lens for photographers who want all their lenses to function in the same way and cannot adjust to a different way of working. This is a design for the connoisseur with an appreciation for optics and their history.

There is no other independent maker of Leica M mount lenses that offers the same level of quality and creativity as MS Optical in the world today. This is not just a lens, it is a celebration of the spirit of photography.

MS Optical Perar Super Triplet 35/3.5 Silver

The MS Optical lens Super Triplet Perar 4/28 continues to be popular, in fact so popular that the complete batch of 28mm Perar is close to being sold out and there are currently no plans for another production run.

Stocks for the long-selling Super Triplet Perar 3.5/35 Mark II are also depleting and while there are plans for another run, it will not happen this year.

We have a limited supply of both lenses, to be considered “final stocks” for the above reasons.

For a limited period we are in the privileged position to be able to offer either lens with EU shipping at a small additional cost, therefore bypassing any customs obligations. Please select the EU shipping option when ordering.

At the risk of overusing the word limited in this post, the above photo shows the silver version of the 35mm Super Triplet, originally only available in Hong Kong. Only two lenses are available. SOLD OUT

Lastly, a new lens by Mr Miyazaki is on the horizon, the MS Optical 50/1.13 Sonnetar. The lens offers a very wide aperture and is a Sonnar design. Ten copies will be assembled in early September and details published at that time. These are not prototypes, and to use Mr Miyazaki’s own words “I do not make enough mistakes to justify building that many prototypes” — these are full production spec lenses. After that more lenses are made to produce 300 in total. The lens will be available via various outlets and is priced at Y109.000. We are aiming to offer a EU shipping option for this lens as we are doing for the Perars. More info on this item will follow shortly.

UPDATE: some photos of the lens can be seen here.

UPDATE2: buyers in Hong Kong can buy this lens at Leitzian Limited in Tsim Sha Tsui. Ming Wong will have priority stock and in the beautiful store you can try before buy, and of course meet other Leica people.

MING YUEN WONG
Leitzian LTD

Room 1302, Lee Wai Comm Blvd
Yin Chong street
1-3A Hart Ave, Tsim Sha Tsui
HONG KONG
Tel:+85292221013

We hope you find these MS Optical lens news of interest and welcome questions or comments.

Japan Exposures including our Web and Book Stores will take a holiday starting July 9th until the end of July. The cut-off for Hirano hand-made camera cases was Friday, June 29th. Orders placed on or after these dates will be processed and shipped upon our return in August.

Orders for products that are currently backordered might also be shipped in August. We will make every effort to inform customers with pending order accordingly to manage expectations.

Please note that replies to email inquiries might also be delayed accordingly. We apologise for any inconvenience.

The holiday will affect the web and book stores and the following products and services, which will resume from early August:

• MS Optical lens conversions including Converted Contax G lens for Leica M Packages
• Sales of JE Exotica
• Japan Exposures Equipment Sourcing and Camera Spare Part Services

“What is
On the other side
In the forest
draped in uncertainty
I am alone,
gazing in admiration”

– Masako Miyazaki

When presenting and discussing Japanese Photography I often wonder whether myself and everyone else share our definition of what Japanese Photography is (or is not). Whether there is even a need to ask for a definition or leave it open to everyone to substitute their own. Still, sooner or later someone might ask “what do you like about Japanese photography?” or “what do you think is different in Japanese Photography?”. Then you would have to ask back, what the person means by Japanese Photography at the first place. Is it a signature style or technique? Probably not. Or simply a Japanese photographer, or a photograph taken in the country of Japan? Possibly, but that’s not all. Could a non-Japanese person produce Japanese Photography at all, or a Japanese person be unable to do so? Probably yes. There are no obvious answers, only clues. I have been looking for such clues for a while and even though my answer is not complete, I feel that gathering traces is a legitimate way to approach it.

Masako Miyazaki’s book The Other Side, published in late 2011 by Tosei-sha, offers such a clue. Not too unlike Manabu Someya’s Nirai (incidentally also published by Tosei-sha), I very much enjoyed looking at this book as it felt like being taken by the hand onto a journey into different places. That is not just physical locations, but places in the mind. Studying the images closely, they were taken in a variety of locations. There are images of Japan and elsewhere (I suspect the Mediterranean and/or Central Europe). Despite that variety, the image content, texture and style allowed them to be presented together while maintaining a common theme between them. Location or subject is not what strings them together.

On a depictive level, a commonality between the images soon becomes apparent: the square black and white images almost all seem to be focussed on the very remote distance, irrespective of whether the near distance contains a subject of interest. Additionally, a very close distance object is often obscuring our view slightly – a wall, high-grown grass, a tree, bushy vegetation or similar. We are often peering over or around those obstructions with a sense of safety as if guarding us from the scene from waist level (presumably due to the use of a medium format camera with waist level finder), like a child who stumbled upon a scene accidentally while running after a ball or a butterfly. Now we find ourselves slightly outside our comfort zone, exactly on the thin line of being equally thrilled and curious to move further while at the same time frightened and wanting to go back to familiar grounds. Here we stand still now, hearing only our own breath and the sounds of nature, frozen in time by our minds and in turn by the capture of the photograph. We have become one with the scene, with the environment, except that unlike the trees or bushes around us we have a gaze into the scene and our view is set on the horizon, the infinite distance.

Few people appear in Miyazaki’s photographs and if they do then they are largely coincidental and visually insignificant. These are introvert photographs, but not of self-importance or exhibitionism. A wanderer in a foreign place is strolling across the landscape with a hint of melancholy. The scene is alive yet abandoned, as if everyone just left to go home for lunch or dinner time a short moment ago. We are still out here, perhaps nobody is expecting us to go home or we just want to enter slightly into the lapse of time and be “too late”, that is not return home on time. Not too late for anyone to worry about us or to scold us, yet enjoying once again finding ourselves on the border between what we should or shouldn’t do.

Towards the end of the book the nature of the images changes slightly. We are now in motion, gazing out of a moving train or car. Are we leaving a place we enjoyed so much as described above? In the final pages we are indoors, the same low level views towards or out of windows and doors. A peek into the living room, over the window sill seeing the roofs of opposite buildings, or inside a shop, church or boutique. Have we returned home from a summer vacation in the countryside back into the hometown, perhaps? The feeling is once more on the middle ground of being saddened by our timely return, yet inside ourselves treasuring the experience of the weeks we roamed on our own on The Other Side.

Miyazaki’s photographs represent just some of the things that Japanese Photography are for me; a quiet yet strong undercurrent of expression that does not present itself to the viewer too easily and besides sensitivity requires patience. At the same time there is an element of child-like honesty and innocence that make the images more than simple documents of localities; we are being offered access to someone else’s inner self as a companion or visitor, just close enough to share some personal time together and not too close to offend or invade the privacy of our host.

Please also see a special gallery with more images from Miyazaki’s book.

Signed copies of The Other Side are available for purchase in the Japan Exposures Bookstore.