All posts by Kurt

Light Reading, Photosonics

Moriyama’s Magazine Work from the 60s and 70s

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We have created another in our series of video looks at recent photobooks, this time focusing on the two just-published collections of work that Daido Moriyama published in various photography magazines from 1965 to 1974. The two books together collect over 90 different series from a time when seemingly you could not pick up an issue of one of the two major photo monthlies of the time — Camera Mainichi and Asahi Camera — and not find a Moriyama photo essay in them.

I fully admit that sometimes the Moriyama publishing juggernaut tends to overwhelm in its recent Araki-like incarnation, but in this case these two companion volumes are to me completely justified. By reproducing the essays exactly as they were first published, with their original layout, typography, and captions, we get a unique insight into how the Provoke aesthetic of are, bure, bokeh took shape in the mind of its dominant proponent, and what’s more, the books bring us closer to experiencing the vibrant experimentation that characterized Japanese photography at the time.

にっぽん劇場 1965-1970
Nippon Gekijou 1965-1970
Photographs by Daido Moriyama
Published in 2009 by Getsuyosha; softcover with dustcover; 410 plates (365 b/w, 45 color); 26cm x 18cm; occasional English translations contained in the original photo essays are available, but in general the text in the book is all Japanese.

何かへの旅 1971-1974
Nani ka e no tabi 1971-1974
Photographs by Daido Moriyama
Published in 2009 by Getsuyosha; softcover with dustcover; 484 plates (334 b/w, 150 color); 26cm x 18cm; occasional English translations contained in the original photo essays are available, but in general the text in the book is all Japanese.

(You can watch the above video at a larger size at Japan Exposure’s page at Vimeo.)

Cover Photo

Yasuhiro Ogawa — from Slowly Down the River

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Yasuhiro Ogawa was born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1968, and began to practice photography when he was 24, influenced by the work Sebastiao Salgado. Since his first exhibition titled “Futashika-na-Chizu” which was held at Ginza Kodak Photo-salon, Tokyo, in 1999 — which garnered Ogawa the 37th Taiyo Award in 2000 — Ogawa’s work has been extensively exhibited and published in various publications. This year Ogawa won the prestigious Newcomer’s Award from the Photographic Society of Japan for his Slowly Down the River work, from which the above image comes. The work centers around the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China, and the profound changes wrought by this massive development.

Please see our review of Slowly Down the River, and a special gallery of Ogawa’s black and white work.

Slowly Down the River is available from the Japan Exposures Bookstore.

Shop News

Moriyama’s Northern already going OOP

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Daido Moriyama: Northern (2009)It seems like the other day we were announcing a new Daido Moriyama title in this space, his great Northern, and already we have heard that this book is going out of print. The publisher or Moriyama (or a combination of both, perhaps) have decided not to go to a second printing, and what is out there on store shelves now is all there will be. Needless to say, we have a few of those copies ourselves, so order now or be prepared to pay substantially more in the future. I should also add that, although we have not advertised it as such, the copies we have been selling so far have been signed by the artist. (Please note: We will do our best to obtain signed copies of Northern for orders placed in the next couple of weeks, but we CANNOT guarantee it.)

Northern was one of the books we recently featured in a video review, which should provide you with a taste of this book that is well worth owning.

UPDATE (September 16, 2009): Signed copies are now completely sold out and we will not be able to get any more. Non-signed copies are still available for a limited time.