Japanese Photobooks

• Blue Lotus Editions / Photo Editions 2024
• Hardback, 2nd edition, 100p
• New

Yasuhiro Ogawa’s new photobook Into the Silence captures the rugged yet timeless beauty of Japan’s northern region as he follows in the footsteps of the 17th Century poet Matsuo Bashō.

The story of Matsuo Bashō's journey through the northern provinces of Japan in the 17th century, is recounted in his travelogue "The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” ("Oku no Hosomichi”). In the summer of 1689, Bashō set out on his journey with his traveling companion Sora. They traveled on foot, carrying only minimal provisions and staying in humble lodgings along the way. Bashō was seeking inspiration for his poetry, and he found it in the natural beauty and cultural richness of the places he visited.

Like Bashō before him, Ogawa set out on a journey through the Tōhoku region, unlike Bashō, who traveled on foot with pen in hand, Ogawa preferred to move by train with camera in hand.  His photographs capture the rugged beauty of the landscape, from snow-covered mountains to misty forests and along deserted roads with glimpses of wild oceans, often shot through foggy windows on a train in motion. Through his lens, Ogawa reveals a world that is both remote and timeless, a world in stillness and motion.

Despite the passage of centuries, the challenges faced by Bashō on his journey are still evident in Ogawa’s photographs. The loneliness and isolation of the road are palpable in the shots of empty trains, lone tracks or roads and desolate hotel interiors. So are the physical challenges of traversing rough terrain and inclement weather documented in his muted photographs.  There is a marked contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the landscape and the harsh realities of life in this remote region. From plain coastal towns to empty streets, Ogawa’s images reveal the toll that economic decline and depopulation have taken on the area. Yet there remains a sense of hope and resilience.

Hardback 2nd edition (1st was softcover)

Signed copy. 

Copies of Into The Silence, with a signed print are available here.

• Blue Lotus Editions / Photo Editions 2024
• Hardback, 2nd edition, 100p
• New

Yasuhiro Ogawa’s new photobook Into the Silence captures the rugged yet timeless beauty of Japan’s northern region as he follows in the footsteps of the 17th Century poet Matsuo Bashō.

The story of Matsuo Bashō's journey through the northern provinces of Japan in the 17th century, is recounted in his travelogue "The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” ("Oku no Hosomichi”). In the summer of 1689, Bashō set out on his journey with his traveling companion Sora. They traveled on foot, carrying only minimal provisions and staying in humble lodgings along the way. Bashō was seeking inspiration for his poetry, and he found it in the natural beauty and cultural richness of the places he visited.

Like Bashō before him, Ogawa set out on a journey through the Tōhoku region, unlike Bashō, who traveled on foot with pen in hand, Ogawa preferred to move by train with camera in hand.  His photographs capture the rugged beauty of the landscape, from snow-covered mountains to misty forests and along deserted roads with glimpses of wild oceans, often shot through foggy windows on a train in motion. Through his lens, Ogawa reveals a world that is both remote and timeless, a world in stillness and motion.

Despite the passage of centuries, the challenges faced by Bashō on his journey are still evident in Ogawa’s photographs. The loneliness and isolation of the road are palpable in the shots of empty trains, lone tracks or roads and desolate hotel interiors. So are the physical challenges of traversing rough terrain and inclement weather documented in his muted photographs.  There is a marked contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the landscape and the harsh realities of life in this remote region. From plain coastal towns to empty streets, Ogawa’s images reveal the toll that economic decline and depopulation have taken on the area. Yet there remains a sense of hope and resilience.

Hardback 2nd edition (1st edition was softcover)

Signed copy.

Supplied with a  7”x 5” signed and stamped archival pigment print (snow image) as shown.  Exclusive to Photobookstore.

• Blue Lotus Editions / Photo Editions 2024
• Hardback, 2nd edition, 100p
• New

Yasuhiro Ogawa’s new photobook Into the Silence captures the rugged yet timeless beauty of Japan’s northern region as he follows in the footsteps of the 17th Century poet Matsuo Bashō.

The story of Matsuo Bashō's journey through the northern provinces of Japan in the 17th century, is recounted in his travelogue "The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” ("Oku no Hosomichi”). In the summer of 1689, Bashō set out on his journey with his traveling companion Sora. They traveled on foot, carrying only minimal provisions and staying in humble lodgings along the way. Bashō was seeking inspiration for his poetry, and he found it in the natural beauty and cultural richness of the places he visited.

Like Bashō before him, Ogawa set out on a journey through the Tōhoku region, unlike Bashō, who traveled on foot with pen in hand, Ogawa preferred to move by train with camera in hand.  His photographs capture the rugged beauty of the landscape, from snow-covered mountains to misty forests and along deserted roads with glimpses of wild oceans, often shot through foggy windows on a train in motion. Through his lens, Ogawa reveals a world that is both remote and timeless, a world in stillness and motion.

Despite the passage of centuries, the challenges faced by Bashō on his journey are still evident in Ogawa’s photographs. The loneliness and isolation of the road are palpable in the shots of empty trains, lone tracks or roads and desolate hotel interiors. So are the physical challenges of traversing rough terrain and inclement weather documented in his muted photographs.  There is a marked contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the landscape and the harsh realities of life in this remote region. From plain coastal towns to empty streets, Ogawa’s images reveal the toll that economic decline and depopulation have taken on the area. Yet there remains a sense of hope and resilience.

Hardback 2nd edition (1st edition was softcover)

Signed copy.

Supplied with a  7”x 5” signed and stamped archival pigment print (birds image) as shown.  Exclusive to Photobookstore.

• Blue Lotus Editions / Photo Editions 2024
• Hardback, 2nd edition, 100p
• New

Yasuhiro Ogawa’s new photobook Into the Silence captures the rugged yet timeless beauty of Japan’s northern region as he follows in the footsteps of the 17th Century poet Matsuo Bashō.

The story of Matsuo Bashō's journey through the northern provinces of Japan in the 17th century, is recounted in his travelogue "The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” ("Oku no Hosomichi”). In the summer of 1689, Bashō set out on his journey with his traveling companion Sora. They traveled on foot, carrying only minimal provisions and staying in humble lodgings along the way. Bashō was seeking inspiration for his poetry, and he found it in the natural beauty and cultural richness of the places he visited.

Like Bashō before him, Ogawa set out on a journey through the Tōhoku region, unlike Bashō, who traveled on foot with pen in hand, Ogawa preferred to move by train with camera in hand.  His photographs capture the rugged beauty of the landscape, from snow-covered mountains to misty forests and along deserted roads with glimpses of wild oceans, often shot through foggy windows on a train in motion. Through his lens, Ogawa reveals a world that is both remote and timeless, a world in stillness and motion.

Despite the passage of centuries, the challenges faced by Bashō on his journey are still evident in Ogawa’s photographs. The loneliness and isolation of the road are palpable in the shots of empty trains, lone tracks or roads and desolate hotel interiors. So are the physical challenges of traversing rough terrain and inclement weather documented in his muted photographs.  There is a marked contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the landscape and the harsh realities of life in this remote region. From plain coastal towns to empty streets, Ogawa’s images reveal the toll that economic decline and depopulation have taken on the area. Yet there remains a sense of hope and resilience.

Hardback 2nd edition (1st edition was softcover)

Signed copy.

Supplied with a  7”x 5” signed and stamped archival pigment print (cat image) as shown.  Exclusive to Photobookstore.

• Blue Lotus Editions / Photo Editions 2024
• Hardback, 2nd edition, 100p
• New

Yasuhiro Ogawa’s new photobook Into the Silence captures the rugged yet timeless beauty of Japan’s northern region as he follows in the footsteps of the 17th Century poet Matsuo Bashō.

The story of Matsuo Bashō's journey through the northern provinces of Japan in the 17th century, is recounted in his travelogue "The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” ("Oku no Hosomichi”). In the summer of 1689, Bashō set out on his journey with his traveling companion Sora. They traveled on foot, carrying only minimal provisions and staying in humble lodgings along the way. Bashō was seeking inspiration for his poetry, and he found it in the natural beauty and cultural richness of the places he visited.

Like Bashō before him, Ogawa set out on a journey through the Tōhoku region, unlike Bashō, who traveled on foot with pen in hand, Ogawa preferred to move by train with camera in hand.  His photographs capture the rugged beauty of the landscape, from snow-covered mountains to misty forests and along deserted roads with glimpses of wild oceans, often shot through foggy windows on a train in motion. Through his lens, Ogawa reveals a world that is both remote and timeless, a world in stillness and motion.

Despite the passage of centuries, the challenges faced by Bashō on his journey are still evident in Ogawa’s photographs. The loneliness and isolation of the road are palpable in the shots of empty trains, lone tracks or roads and desolate hotel interiors. So are the physical challenges of traversing rough terrain and inclement weather documented in his muted photographs.  There is a marked contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the landscape and the harsh realities of life in this remote region. From plain coastal towns to empty streets, Ogawa’s images reveal the toll that economic decline and depopulation have taken on the area. Yet there remains a sense of hope and resilience.

Hardback 2nd edition (1st edition was softcover)

Signed copy.

Supplied with a  7”x 5” signed and stamped archival pigment print (rain image) as shown.  Exclusive to Photobookstore.

• Torch Press 2023
• Hardback, 1st edition, 64p
• New

“HERE AND NOW” is a photographic picture book that combines the poem by Shuntaro Tanikawa and photographs by Rinko Kawauchi. This book was created based on the lyrics written by Tanikawa for Ikuko Harada’s song, “HERE AND NOW” which emerged from the planetarium program, “Colors of the Dark” screened at The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan). Harada’s song, “HERE AND NOW” was included in her first solo album in 15 years released this year, and features voices of 0 to 91 years old, readings by Tanikawa himself, breath sounds, heartbeats, sounds composed by rei harakami, resulting in an 11.5 min epic musical piece. The project for a “book” kicked off when Harada visited Kawauchi’s photographic exhibition, “M/E: On this sphere Endlessly interlinking” when creating the music.

In this photographic picture book “HERE AND NOW” composed by Kawauchi herself so that the words and images respond to each other, its art director, Hideyuki Saito’s design leads the flow of the pages with each word encompassing a rhythm. As a fundamental poem, “HERE AND NOW” allows us to question one’s own existence, while also leaving room for a broad understanding of the piece. Layered with a series of fresh photographs from which we can feel our natural breath in tranquility, it guides us to a journey transcending time and space, while standing beside us. Please enjoy turning the pages to open the door of  “HERE AND NOW,” woven with words and images and closely connected to the song “I “HERE AND NOW” which immerses its audience deep and far through its embracing whispers.

• Akio Nagasawa 2024
• Softcover, 1st edition 120p
• New

"Off the main street across from Yokosuka station on the Keihin Kyuko, there is an entertainment district known as “Wakamatsu Market,” that has retained much of the good old Showa flair. As I currently have some other business in the area, I’m walking the streets of Yokosuka quite frequently these days, and realized that visited Wakamatsu Market for the first time since walking around here several years ago to take photos for an earlier issue of Record. Once I slipped into the area’s back streets, there was a smell in the air that reminded me of Shinjuku’s “Golden-gai.” It’s a smell that I like, an environment that my body seems to feel comfortable in, so whenever I pass through it now, I can’t do so without repeatedly pressing my camera’s shutter. On the other hand, however, the Dobuita-dori shopping street that has been synonymous with Yokosuka more than any other place, and where I used to hang out to take pictures around the clock so to speak, has transformed into a place that I now find utterly boring. Not that the neighborhood has changed completely. Even the notorious “sukajan” jacket shops are still there. It is the atmosphere in the streets, the people that I meet here now, the way everything smells, that is so different now. I know that it’s useless to expect everything to be just as I remember it from roaming the streets that I identified with Yokosuka some 60 years ago. Nonetheless, I ask myself where in the world those unique nightly sceneries, those ladies swaggering through the dusky streets with the American soldiers, have all gone. As a matter of course, things change with the times, with age and through the generations, and this place makes no exception. But at the same time, there are those things that do remind me of the Yokosuka that I know so well: the area around the station on the Yokosuka Line, the sea you could see from Shiori station, the ships and cranes on the military base…

So I find myself scouring this neighborhood with a wry smile now. Could it be that Yokosuka is where my photographing career started, and where ends? No way! C’mon Daido, you’ve got work to do!

I like it though, Yokosuka."

– from the afterword by Daido Moriyama

Signed copy.

• the(M) éditions / IBASHO 2021
• Hardback, 1st edition
• Near fine - see below

• Zen Foto 2017
• Softcover, 1st edition
  
• Used: near fine to fine
  

Masaki Yamamoto’s highly anticipated first photobook presents one of the most daring family portraits in Japanese photography.

Shot entirely in his family’s tiny apartment, with walls yellowed from cigarette smoke, broken doors and trash covering the ground, Yamamoto’s unashamed, uncompromising black-and-white photos nonetheless depict a strong and rare sense of familial intimacy and affection. Not quite dysfunctional, but decidedly atypical.

“As we grew up, we had different experiences of being bullied, socially withdrawn, sick, badly behaved and so on. These experiences intertwined with the Yamamoto family’s history and are what makes up our lives as well as the family’s bonds today”

Fine condition, signed by the photographer.

• Sokyusha 2020
  
• Hardback, 1st edition, 1st printing
  
• New
  

Shikawatari (Deer Crossing” is Chieko Shiraishi’s long-awaited new work, released five years after her photobook Shimagake. In this black-and-white work, Shiraishi presents a series of poetic images taken in wintry Dōtō in Eastern Hokkaido. The central theme is a herd of deer that Shiraishi encountered while travelling; the shy animals wander the snowy landscapes, across frozen lakes and barren forests. Shiraishi keeps her distance to the animals. In some photos, they let her come near, but they always keep a watchful eye on her. She encounters other animals as well – large birds, foxes – and wide, clear landscape shots give us a sense of the surroundings. Shiraishi’s series masterfully creates a sense of wonder, as if one is at the doors to a world of magic realism, as if the deer have decided to permit us access to an otherwise secret part of the natural world.

“While travelling through the wilderness in Dōtō, I encountered a herd of deer crossing the frozen lake in a row, silently. While gazing at the herd, I found a providential, beautiful law of nature, and I felt as though I had witnessed something sacred which is a part of nature. The wilderness of “Dōtō” provides a feeling of oneness with the majestic natural world that I had never before experienced.” - Chieko Shiraishi

1st printing, new condition.  Unsigned.

• Dashwood/Session Press 2023
• Softcover, 1st edition,424p
  
• New

With the publication of his serialized photo-essay Hikari to Kage (Light and Shadow) in the first issues of the magazine, Shashin Jidai, Daido Moriyama announced his return to photography after nearly a decade. Moriyama had been mired in an acute creative slump from his mid thirties, since the publication of his seminal book, Shashin yo Sayonara (Farewell Photography) in 1972.  Unable to take nearly any photos for a prolonged period, he turned to illicit drugs, ultimately wasting away to little more than 40 kgs before he hit physical and emotional rock bottom.  Lured back by Akira Hasegawa, Shashin Jidai’s editor, he was invited to contribute photographs for each issue.  This began a long relationship between Moriyama and Shashin Jidai.  He would ultimately make a total of six serialized essays that appeared through sixty-three issues (in every issue but one) until its’ demise in April 1988.  During this period Moriyama worked almost exclusively for Shasin Jidai and was given a free hand to explore and experiment and in the process evolved a new aesthetic that still informs his photography today.  Tragically, more than eighty percent of his negatives were lost from this pivotal body of work.  In Daido Moriyama Shashin Jidai 1981–1988 the complete run of essays or chapters that appeared concurrently in Shashin Jidai are brought together for the first time, representing the only way to appreciate them without acquiring the original magazines themselves.  Each complete essay is reproduced alongside a selected portfolio of images and written essays by Moriyama from each chapter as they appeared in the original magazines.  Text appears in Japanese with English translation.

In over 400 pages it provides access to a pivotal period in the evolution of one of the most revered and influential photographers of the twentieth century, as yet undocumented in book-form. 

Accompanying there is a short essay “The Photo Age: Daido Moriyama and Shashin Jidai” by Kotaro Iizawa. Translation throughout by Daniel González, Essays by Daido Moriyama, Text by Kotaro Iizawa, Design by Geoff Han, Editing by David Strettell and Miwa Susuda.

Softcover with poster.

• Nazraeli 2007
• Softcover, 1st edition, 400p
• New

"In Spring, I am going to go to Hawaii to photograph. I'm so excited, and a little anxious - I've never been there before. The idea of Hawaii has been stuck in my mind for many, many years, just as the idea of a place. I try to imagine what it's like, and I have a certain image of it - a nostalgic place, a place where time has stopped. When I get there, I'll probably find out it's nothing like that. . . ." - Daido Moriyama, 2004

Three years and five trips later, Daido Moriyama created a book of photographs of what he did find in Hawaii.

1st Nazraeli edition of 500 copies, unsigned.

• Reminders Photography / Self 2014
• Hardback, handmade edition
• As new
  

Silent Histories is a testimony to the tragedy of indiscriminate bombing by  US forces during the War in the Pacific, which killed 330,000 Japanese and in-jured 430,000 more. The figures are imposing: some 9.7 million left homeless and more than 2.23 million homes destroyed in more than 200 different cities. In the midst of this enormous destruction, many children were orphaned in an instant or suffered burning or mutilations that marked them for life.

Japan achieved its economic recovery in the wake of wartime devastation. This remarkable growth has been dubbed the “Japanese economic miracle.”  In spite of this unprecedented prosperity, however, children with war injuries have been forced to live harsh lives, unable to cure their wounds. They have lived in the shadows, concealing their pain, hiding their scars, and sparing others the discomfort of seeing them.

Silent Histories was originally published in 2014 in a special limited edition of forty-five handmade copies, this is the final handmade dummy for the 2014 original edition obtained direct from the artist.

Signed by Kazuma Obara.   Completely handmade dummy, with expected imperfections.  All texts in Japanese.

• Akio Nagasawa 2023
• Softcover, 1st edition, 132p
• New"Even now that it’s the end of August, it’s still quite hot outside.

• Nitesha 2023
  
• Softcover, reprinted edition
  
• New
  

Provoke was first published in November 1968 as a dojin-shi, or self-published magazine. It was originally conceived by art critic Koji Taki (1928-2011) and photographer Takuma Nakahira (1938-2015), with poet Takahiko Okada (1939-1997) and photographer Yutaka Takanashi as dojin members. The subtitle for the magazine was “Provocative Materials for Thought”, and each issue was composed of photographs, essays and poems. After releasing the second and third issue with Daido Moriyama as a subsequent member, the group broke up with their last publication First, Abandon the World of Pseudo-Certainty - an overview edition of the three issues. Provoke’s grainy, blurry, and out-of-focus photographs were initially ridiculed as are-bure-boke and stirred a great deal of controversy, yet it had created a strong impact inside and outside of the photography world during that time. However, today, Provoke has become an extremely rare book and very few people have seen the original.

Published as part of The Japanese Box: Facsimile Reprint of Six Rare Photographic Publications of the Provoke Era*, Provoke's facsimile reprint has its photographic images cropped approximately 3 mm from the edges for bookbinding purposes. The reprint also does not include texts by Takahiko Okada due to copyright reasons. Provoke Complete Reprint by NITESHA maintains the original size of the images and includes all original texts, along with the ones by Takahiko Okada. In addition, the volumes will be accompanied by complete English and Chinese translations of the original Japanese texts as a booklet.

2023 printing.

• Sokyusha 2023
  
• Hardback, 1st  edition
• New

A rare time capsule from the 1980s

The story of Daido Moriyama’s photobook “1980s Remnants” begins in 1987, when Moriyama handed Michitaka Ota (of photobook publisher Sokyusha) a box filled with one thousand of his photographs. Some photos from the box were published in “A Journey to Nakaji” later that year and, more than ten years later, in the 1999 photobook “Dreams of Water.” Moriyama insisted that Ota keep the box of photographs, and so they stayed in a corner of Ota’s apartment. A recent conversation brought the box back to mind, and finally, writes Ota, “I was pleased to find that I now can give them some shape.”

Even though the more than 30 years that have passed between the creation of these photographs and their eventual publication becomes part of their charm and magic, these 1980s Moriyama snapshots – of streets and textures and the beauty of urban chaos and, somewhat atypically, plants and floral wildlife – remain fascinating in their own right.

Edition of 300 copies.

• Benrido 2023
• Set of 6 colour collotype prints
• New

• Osiris 2023
  
• Hardback, 1st edition, 120p
• New

“Dawn in Spring” brings back the earliest works of Japanese photographer Asako Narahashi.　Originally shot in 1989, a decisive period not only for the then-unknown artist, Narahashi exhibited the images from her “Dawn in Spring” series four separate times throughout the year. Including previously unshown images, this book represents the first time her series is made available in print.

After taking part in Daido Moriyama’s “FotoSession” workshop in the mid-80s, 1989 was the year her time as a university student would end. With an undecided future ahead of her, Narahashi travelled through Japan – Kumamoto, Miyakejima, Hakata, Yokohama, Hachinohe, Yuzawa, Tokyo… – and inadvertently laid the foundation for her photographic career. Despite the long time between these photographs and her breakthrough in the latter half of the 90s, the black-and-white images in “Dawn of Spring” already reveal the acute sensibilities of this exceptional artist.

“Dawn in Spring. I can’t for the life of me remember how I arrived at this title. Perhaps because it happened to be spring; maybe the words were already resting at the tip of my tongue and just felt right to me. I had no real idea where to travel or what to photograph. I think I simply let the flow, the momentum, my encounters and my desire to escape decide it all … Having come face to face with my contact prints, negatives and 8x10s after all these years, I realized once again that this is where it all began for me.”
― from Asako Narahashi’s artist statement

• the(M) éditions / IBASHO 2023
• Softcover, 3rd edition, 126pp
• New

'In so it goes, Miho Kajioka is presenting work which relates to the concept of time, memory and location. Like in her earlier works, the series consists of intuitive images of fragments of her daily life, from various periods and against changing backdrops. Miho Kajioka regards herself more as a painter/drawer than as a photographer. She feels that photographic techniques help her to create works that fully express her artistic vision.'

The original limited edition received the prestigious 'Prix Nadar' award in 2019. 
this third edition, 'so it goes, so it goes, so it goes' stands apart from its two predecessors, with not only a unique new cover but also some fresh content, including Kajioka's new colour images.

Last few copies.

• Deadbeat Club 2023
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

Legendary photographer Toshio Shibata’s first monograph with Deadbeat Club is a true collaboration between artist and publisher. “I feel like this is a new interpretation of how I moved my subject from the night to the day,” he says of the book. “It even feels like some kind of destiny.” It’s a welcome fate for Shibata’s numerous admirers and collectors, as these 70 black-and-white photographs were made between 1980 and 1988 and have remained largely unpublished and unseen for some 35 years.

The structural concept is seemingly simple: a progression through a sequence of nighttime photographs into a set of images made in the day, but – as always with Shibata – nothing is as straightforward as it first appears. Intense light sources, both indoor and outdoor, make the nocturnal scenes even stranger than they would be if enveloped in darkness. As for the daylight pictures, heavy masses of constructed earth and stone serve to ground us in a world that is anything but bright and airy. And in the pivot between day and night lies a foreboding tunnel that subsumes both the luminous and the murky.

As the title Day For Night implies, it is in Shibata’s camera that light and darkness swap roles. “The title gives another layer to the book,” he says. “I knew that technique since my childhood through watching ‘Rawhide’ on TV but until now I’d never seen my own work with such an eye.” The result is a book that confounds expectations, not only for its viewers, but even for its maker.

Unsigned.

• Libraryman 2023
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

Staged on a farm in rural Japan, externaling Higashikawa in Hokkaido, Osamu Yokonami’s (b. 1967, Japanese) images demonstrate his particular use of photography as an artistic medium. Working with straightforward camera angles, Yokonami transforms ordinary bodies, farming tools and the local produce into haunting images—unexpectedly absurd and familiar. Headless figures, an aubergine-masked face, an abandoned baby on a paper bag, a topless character submissively kneeling in the grass while balancing two large tomatoes on their back. The series suggests a performative and complicit moment between the photographer and the people portrayed. As one feels the vulnerability of the subject facing the lens, one wonders: who is playing who in this image?

The book contains a foreword written by editor and designer Tony Cederteg.

First edition of 1,000 copies.

• RM 2020
• Hardback, 2nd edition
• NEW
  

Born in 1957 in Gamagori, in the Japanese prefecture of Aichi, Yamamoto Masao is a photographer who began his art studies as an oil painter under the supervision of Goro Saito in his hometown. Yamamoto subsequently discovered that photography was the ideal medium for the theme that most interested him: images with the ability to evoke memories.

“Small Things in Silence” offers a perspective on twenty years of the career of one of Japan’s most important photographers. In the words of Yamamoto himself: “I try to capture moments that no one sees and make a photo from them. When I see them in print, a new story begins.”

• L'Artiere 2016
• Hardback, 1st edition
• Good - see below

“The book “PATH IN BETWEEN” is the visual record of the author’s process of recovering memories with clues found on paths his father used to take and places his family used to visit. When he attempted to trace memories of his late father, Hajime Kimura realized that most of them were missing. Because of this, his photos were shot with a half-framed camera. Each image consists of two shots divided by a thick black border. The continuous sequence of the images seems to repeatedly suggest the photographer’s impossible attempt at recovering a lost past. One can come close to faded memories, but cannot reconstruct them perfectly. Kimura almost reaches the essence of his father’s true character–– the man he barely tried to get to know when he was still alive–– but never quite. A mythical father figure emerges through the vague silhouettes of memories that occasionally cross the page.

When we see a diptych combining two completely different shots, we notice that large part of Kimura’s memory is missing. And, because the nature of memory itself is always ambiguous, real memories have occasionally been replaced by desired ones. Time and action accumulate in the past. They turn into a congregation of recollections. Human beings therefore are living with an enormous amount of memories and repeat a process of accumulation all their lives. If a remembrance is used as a clue to recognize our past and our individual existence, then the partial or entire loss of memory is, in a sense, a missed opportunity to recognize who we are. Existence in itself is lost –– our own and the one of the people we love.

Kimura also produced another series depicting his late father titled “Man and Dog.” In the series the “man” is actually his father, but the fact that he did not use the word “father” indicates his prolonged and distant emotions towards him. While his father was still alive, the photographer never took particular notice of the trivial conversations they exchanged with each other, he never closely examined his own view towards him. Ironically, his gaze towards his father became more distant when he became his photographic subject. However, as distant as his gaze might be, Kimura’s observing eye became more intimate. In a way a simple rule seems to unfold: one has to be close to his photographic subjects, but having a strong feeling towards them doesn’t necessarily constitute a successful photographic act. First of all photography is a medium that requires physical distance from a subject. A photographic image is created from this innate conflict, yet can also trigger exquisite emotions in a viewer. This effect is beautifully represented in this book.

In the last two to three years, Kimura seems to have been obsessively creating these series about his father. In this book, the photographer’s act of searching for memories through the act of taking pictures, emerges with a minimal and simple style. It seems as though he is trying to re-live with his father through his idealized and blurred memories, through a never-ending search for something that is almost invisible.”

Imperfect copy with bump to one corner - otherwise still sealed/unread.

• IKKI Books 2023
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

• Osiris 2019
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

In his photobook “Holy Onion”, Japanese photographer Motoyuki Daifu concentrates on his mother, photographed while she peels an onion in the family’s kitchen (both mother and kitchen are familiar to us from Daifu’s previous works portraying his family’s life).

In 35 continuous photographs, Daifu captures his mother peeling onions, frame by frame. The photographs are taken only moments apart, as Daifu’s mother cuts into the onion in her hand, scratches her nose, look at the camera, back at the onion, wipe her eyes. The book’s accordion design, with some images separated by white pages, others grouped together, adds to the continuous nature of the sequence. As the images progress, small details in the setting change, and by the end of the book, the plate with onion peels is again empty, the process ready to start all over again. With “Holy Onion”, Daifu pays close attention to the intricacies of mundane tasks and accentuates the beauty within (almost automatic) everyday routines.

The book also features an essay by Chris Fujiwara (in English).

• Akio Nagasawa 2023
• Softcover, 1st edition
• New
  

Yesterday, my daughter drove me and my wife to Kami-Ooka, a town south of Yokohama. We had already been there two weeks earlier, and as I had no business accompanying the ladies on their shopping spree, I spent a little over an hour walking around with my camera, in the area around the station that is crowded with people and tall buildings. Quite naturally, the tour also led me to a place that I always visit, and that I have decided to refer to as my “oasis number three.” On one side of a 50-meter stretch of a narrow alley between the back of a store and the Keihin Kyuko line, there are several juice stands, and sandwiched between them, a number of ashtrays are admirably standing and waiting for smokers like myself. There’s always a bunch of folks, guys and ladies alike, puffing away on their cigarettes as if there was no tomorrow. One of the bars has some concrete steps in front of it that are just right for sitting on, and in that “oasis,” I like to spend some quality time smoking while observing the neighborhood through my pocket camera, and taking the occasional snapshot. There are quite a lot of ladies, and also many blue-collar type guys, and they all come together here for a chat and a puff.

Back home, I found myself alone in the kitchen at night, and while having another cigarette or two, I reviewed the results of my own shooting spree in the alleys of Kami-Ooka. “I guess two or three of them will be alright for Record,” I concluded while thinking about the next issue. I remembered also photographing a long line of people and wondered what they were queueing up for, while lighting another cigarette. Another day in the life of the photographer that I am was casually drawing to an end. And tomorrow, I thought, I’m going to take a stroll around Ofuna.

(Number one and two of my own private oases are places that I carry in my heart, and I won’t tell anyone about them, unless they’re heavy smokers just like me!)

– from the afterword by Daido Moriyama

Signed copy.

• Roshin 2015
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

Masahisa Fukase and his wife, Yoko, began their new married life moving in to Matsubara-danchi residential complex of Soka, Saitama in 1964. they were soon joined by a Siamese cat named Kabo. A few years later Fukase brought home a black cat that he had picked up on the way home from fishing- a cat which he named Hebo. From then on the couple lived their day-to-day life with these two cats.

This photo collection was made from the the few remaining vintage prints from that the time. The work is joined by another series of photos of a cat named Sasuke which Fukase had special affection for.

Long out of print.  Edition of 800 copies.

• Akio Nagasawa 2023
• Softcover, 1st edition
• New

"Last fall, the photographer William Klein passed away in Paris.

An exhibition of my own and William Klein’s works attracted a large audience when it was shown at London’s Tate Modern back in 2012. Klein’s part of the exhibition was quite a diverse affair, as it featured next to photographs also paintings and films among others. Obviously, it was the highlight of the show. For my own part, with the exception of a few color prints, I mostly covered the walls with enlarged black-and-white photos.
It was about 60 years ago, that I was completely knocked down by the shocking experience that was browsing through the photo book NEW YORK, which inspired me to launch my own life and work as a photographer. With that in mind, when it came to doing that two-man show in London, flooding the place with black-and-white shots was all that I could possibly do in response to Klein’s work.

When he showed up for our first meeting in years, a big man in a big wheelchair, it just so happened naturally that we shook hands. That one moment was enough to fill my heart with emotions, and make me feel like shouting out that, for me, the exhibition had already concluded, even though it had in fact just opened. (...)"

– from the afterword by Daido Moriyama

Signed copy.

• Match & Co 2016
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

After Dazai and Daido Moriyama: Terayama, the third entry in Match & Company’s literary collaboration series with Daido Moriyama. Photographs by Daido Moriyama are paired with Oda Sakunosuke’s 1946 short-story “At the Horse Races” to pay tribute to one of Japan’s literary treasures.

“For this project, I paired photos of Osaka, taken by Daido Moriyama, with the short story “At the Horse Races”, written by Sakunosuke Oda in 1946, and edited them into this book. […]
I told Moriyama I wanted to create a book that, by pairing them together, would give an entirely new layer of expression to both his photographs of Osaka and the words of Sakunosuke Oda.

My trick to let two artists, each with a strong personality, meet within the space of a book to stimulate each other, has worked.”

• Chose Commune 2022
• Softcover, 1st edition
• New

Mikiko Hara has her own way of secretly capturing the strangers who cross her path: a young man on the train, a couple holding hands, a little girl playing in a park… Sometimes their eyes meet briefly as she presses the shutter, but Mikiko Hara does not exchange with her subjects. Yet, these portraits reveal something infinitely personal, as if the photographer and her subjects were bound by an invisible pact: being in the right place at the right time.

Mikiko Hara’s approach, firmly rooted in a documentation of every- day life, extends in the intimacy of her living space: cut flowers in the sink, a strawberry shortcake in the fridge, her three sons dozing on the floor. The eye of the photographer, who is also a mother and wife, moves back and forth from the outside to the inside, from the public to the private sphere. Wherever she is, Mikiko Hara observes and tells stories like fragments of life.

At the initiative of the publisher – who made the selection in collaboration with the artist – these unpublished photographs from 1996 to 2021 have been assembled in this book, entitled Small Myths.

• Sokyusha / Blue Lotus Editions 2022
• Softcover, 3rd edition
  
• New
  

"The Dreaming contains 86 black and white images selected from my 27 years’ career in photography and traveling. When I turned 50, I decided to go through all the black & white negatives I had taken so far. Every moment of the journeys may have been vision of dreams – that’s what I thought when I tracked down my archive and such a thought gave me a hint to make this book."

- Yasuhiro Ogawa

Signed copy.  3rd edition.

All our copies come with a 6'x4' postcard size inkjet print (signed and stamped)

• Iikki 2022
  
• Hardback, 2nd edition
  
• New
  

Sasanami is the result of a dialog between the photographer Masao Yamamoto and the musician and composer Akira Uchida initiated by IIKKI between October 2019 and August 2020. 

''Sasanami: Sound becomes waves and creates space, where a story is spun that transcends time and space, just like Noh. Something gentle in that space. Its presence is not definite, it simply exists there. I want to share with you the scene of how the individual and the space are connected.''

Hand-numbered 2nd edition of 1000 copies, with a digital download code for the music.  

• Session Press 2022
  
• Softcover, 1st edition, 2nd printing
  
• NEW
  

Session Press’ Red Flower, The Women of Okinawa, published in 2017, was the first US monograph by Okinawan photographer Mao Ishikawa, a highly revered figure in Japan. The release of the second printing in October of this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Okinawa’s reversion to Japan in 1972 since its’ occupation by the US after World War II.

Red Flower celebrates the courageous and honest lives of women she met and befriended while working at bars in Koza and Kin that were hang-outs for black soldiers from the local US military bases in Okinawa. The book features several unpublished photographs from artist's first book, ”Hot Days in Camp Hansen" published in 1982. Red Flower is the seminal work of Ishikawa, marking the starting point of her subsequently long career as a photographer. Designed with full-bleed images reproduced in a large format with intense b/w printing which successfully conveys the original lively spirit and tension of Ishikawa’s Camp Hansen work, available once again for wider public appreciation with an essay by the artist.

2nd printing.

• Akio Nagasawa 2022
• Softcover, 1st edition
• New

On the occasion of the publication of volume 50 of the Record journal, my works were shown in a long-term slide show event at the AKIO NAGASAWA Gallery in Ginza, from late May until early October. I visited the venue several times since the start of this program, placed myself in the middle of the 5,000 miscellaneous images that were projected onto every inch of the gallery’s walls by seven projectors, and enjoyed the strange experience of standing there, isolated from daily life, and being hit from all sides by the showers of light. The images that were covering the surrounding walls entirely, were quite certainly slides of my own photographs, but due to the complex, constantly changing entanglement of space and time, the pictures that I looked at nimbly slipped out of my field of vision, and left me feel transformed into a sleepwalker who wanders through far and unknown landscapes.

The strange and chaotic images from Tokyo, Marrakech and New York that were perpetually projected onto the walls, had disconnected from the one who shot them, to pursue the anonymous notion that is supposedly inherent in a photograph. It had become totally irrelevant that I was the one who made them, and before I knew it, the projected images transformed into the very “spirit” that is photography itself.
Witnessing this slide show of my own works was an experience that, even at this point in time, taught me a whole new way of responding to them.

Upon opening the gallery’s door and stepping inside, the visitor was instantly greeted by a curious kind of soundscape.That unfathomable mix of sounds was composed of all sorts of tones that were recorded at various places in the streets, and layered on top of each other. Including the occasional flirtatious moan of a woman, it was a mysterious noise that gradually percolated into the listener’s mind.

– from the afterword by Daido Moriyama

Signed copy.

• Akio Nagasawa 2022
• Softcover, reprinted edition, 352p
• New

A complete reproduction of the photobook Daido hysteric no.4 published by Harajuku fashion brand 'HYSTERIC GLAMOUR' in 1993

Signed and numbered edition of 900 copies. 365 x 315 mm, 352p.

• Chose Commune 2022
• Softcover, 1st edition
• Near fine - see below

In 1973, Seiichi Furuya left Japan for Europe on board of the Trans-Siberian train. He arrived in Austria where he first settled in Vienna, before moving to Graz where he met Christine Gössler in 1978. From this day forward, he started photographing her, in the intimacy of their home in Graz but also during their travels abroad — to Germany, England, Italy…and Japan, their most distant destination. Christine studied art history and worked for the radio, making documentary programs. After the birth of their son in 1981, she became increasingly involved in the world of theatre. As she was devoting herself to her acting lessons, she started to show signs of schizophrenia. Christine committed suicide in East Berlin in 1985.

Since Christine’s disappearance, Furuya has never stopped revisiting his archive. This initiative was presented in a series of five books entitled Mémoires, published between 1989 and 2010, and in Face to Face, published by Chose Commune in 2020. In 2018, Seiichi Furuya found super 8 film rolls in his attic. One of them was a recording of the very first trip he made with Christine, in Bologna in 1978 a few weeks after they had met. As an attempt to remember a trip he had completely forgotten about, Seiichi Furuya started extracting stills from the film, frame by frame. These images compose his new series First Trip to Bologna 1978. Together with this series, in the same book, we are releasing a newly edited version of Last Trip to Venice 1985, which was first self-published in 2002. This series presents photographs from Seiichi and Christine’s very last trip, before Christine took her own life.

Signed to a sticker.

Light damage to the cover - see photo example.  Otherwise fine.

• Akio Nagasawa 2022
• Softcover, revised edition, 210 x 297 mm
• New

This is the definitive edition of my "Tales of Tono"

– Daido Moriyama

After its initial publication by Asahi Sonorama in 1976, "TALES of TONO" was reissued in different versions by Kobunsha in 2007, and by Tate Publishing in 2012. However, these were paperback, pocket size editions, which I found somewhat unsatisfactory with regard to enjoying the pictures. For this new, re-edited version, we used larger format, and included 49 previously unpublished photographs that were not included in the first edition.

– from the afterword by Akio Nagasawa

Signed and numbered edition of 600 copies, with a silkscreen-canvas cover.

• IBASHO & the (M)éditions 2021
• Softcover, 1st edition
• New

Yoshinori Saito lives in the most northern part of Japan, Hokkaido. Winter there is long and the snow falls intermittently for about four months. The long stretches of snow are tedious, however after the snowstorm when all the snow has settled, there is this endless expanse of white: pure, calm and silent.

 “When I walk on the fluffy virgin snow, in the distance I notice unusual forms. On closer examination they are only some weeds, with their stalks broken and leaves fallen, leaving only a skeletal form. Against the white snow these forms appear black and form sharp markings, as if drawn. This moment also gives me a deep connection to the indigenous Ainu people of Hokkaido. They believe that when their time on earth is over, they return to God’s world, and in due course will reappear. To reflect this sentiment, each work is titled to reflect their world. It is as if the forms are whispering to me, through the tranquility, giving me hope and gently supporting me through to spring.” - Yoshinori Saito

Elegant softcover with Japanese folds. Limited edition of 500 numbered copies.

Text by Yoshinori Saito in Japanese and English

• the(M) éditions / IBASHO 2021
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

• Akio Nagasawa 2014
• Hardback, reprinted edition
• New

The original 1965 edition of Chizu (The Map) is a legendary photography book that is virtually impossible to catch sight of today.

While relentlessly tracking the “stains” scattered across walls and ceiling of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Kawada projects memories of the war through young soldiers’ portraits and letters, ruined fortresses, etc. At the same time, his pictures of iron scraps at factories, Lucky Strike boxes brought in by occupation forces, dumped Coca-Cola bottles, and other indicators of recovery after the war, document the process of overall transformation in postwar Japan.

This edition of Chizu (The Map), renowned as one of the most experimental Japanese photography books, is a complete reprint adopting Kohei Sugiura’s original peculiar design with all photos as double-page spreads.

Signed and numbered edition of 600 copies.   

• Akio Nagasawa 2021
• Softcover, 1st edition
• New

"She called herself Shinobu in Shinjuku, Hiroko in Minami, Naomi in Nishiki, Yukari in Nakasu. Rumor has it that she is now living quietly in Ishikari where she was born, under the name she was given by her parents. Momoe. I still think of her every once in a while.

This is a profile of her that lives on in my memory."

- Daido Moriyama

Momoe is the extra issue of a four books new series by Daido Moriyama 'Woman in the Night'.

Edition of 350 signed and numbered copies with a silkscreen printed canvas cover.

• Mack 2021
• Set of 2 Hardbacks, 1st Mack edition
• New

Kawada’s The Map / Chizu is the most famous and sought after book in the history of Japanese photography. Designed with the noted graphic designer Kohei Sugiura, Chizu has seen numerous editions since its original publication in August 1965. In November 2001, New York Public Library acquired the rarest version of the book, Kikuji Kawada’s unique, handmade maquette. The maquette presents a notably different physicality than that of the published edition—many of the pictures are the same but with variant croppings, tonalities, orientations, and a markedly dissimilar configuration with a pair of jacketed volumes—each nearly twice as large in format as the published version—separated by a black-and-white divider. With its pages made of thin, silvery darkroom prints, folded in half and pasted back-to-back, there are no folios to unfurl, only a progression of intense, full-bleed images. This MACK version is an exquisite facsimile of the two-volume maquette, and includes an accompanying bilingual booklet featuring new scholarship by Joshua Chuang and Miyuki Hinton, together with an extended interview with the artist, detailing the evolution of one of the greatest photobooks ever made.  

Two hardback books, each with a jacket, plus one paperback booklet with leporello fold. Housed in a buckram bound hardback slipcase, protected in a printed cardboard mailer.  Text in English and Japanese.

The signed edition includes a slip signed by the artist and bound into the inside back cover.

• T&M 2021
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

Yamamoto Masao lives in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, in a house surrounded by forests over three thousand feet above sea level. His lifestyle matches his art, entirely devoted to capturing the “small things in silence” that life and nature offer his gaze.

When in 2013 we took Masao and his wife Reiko for the first time to the Ardèche, on the invitation of Annie and Bernard Mirabel, affinities became evident immediately.

The same love for nature and the ties with the mountain, not that far different from their life in Yamanashi: the same wooded hills on the horizon, the same lights in space in the evening garden. Since then there have been various visits, simply for the pleasure of it, but also to fill up this silent contract between the hosts and the guest: bringing a stone to the edifice that the Fabrique du pont d’Aleyrac has been building for years, inviting artists to work on the Ardèche.

Yamamoto wanted to meet people here and photograph them. Using small settings he depicted imaginatively what seemed important in their lives: the animals they raise, the countryside they live in.

ーー Didier Brouse

This book includes an unpublished text by Marie-Hélène Lafon, who was awarded the Renaudot Prize in 2020.

Text in English with a booklet in Japanese.

Beautifully signed copy.

• Akio Nagasawa 2021
• Softcover, 1st edition
• New

'There was a woman called Naomi in the Nishiki area in Nagoya.
She was a person who loved cars. I often took her for a drive.
It’s already three years since she disappeared from Nishiki.
Even now, I still think of her sometimes.
This is a profile of her as she appears in my memory.'

Naomi is the third volume of a four books new series by Daido Moriyama 'Woman in the Night'.

Silkscreen canvas covered signed and numbered edition of 350 copies only.  

• Session Press 2020
  
• Softcover, new edition
  
• New
  

We Have No Place to Be (originally published by Soshisha in 1982) launched Hashiguchi’s illustrious 40-year career, and remains widely regarded as one of the photographer’s seminal early works. This new edition from Session Press, supervised and edited by Hashiguchi himself, is comprised of 139 b&w photographs, including more than 30 previously unpublished images. 

In the early 1980s, Hashiguchi began to document the plight of the young with his debut work, Shisen. Stifled by the mounting pressures posed by an increasingly oppressive education system and home life, these youths sought out their own identities on the streets of Tokyo—a lost tribe desperate for self-expression, repelled by a society that sang the praises of abundant riches and stability. Turning his lens on the global stage, Hashiguchi traveled through Liverpool, London, Nuremberg, West Berlin, and New York in a quest to further chronicle communities of disenfranchised youths abroad. In these five cities, Hashiguchi witnessed the complex cocktail of self-destructive discord lurking beneath the superficial excesses of city life. Revealing the entrenched drug addiction, racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, unemployment, and poverty that pervaded urban centers then as now, Hashiguchi’s photos challenge the viewer to reexamine what we have both become and lost.

The complexities of youth have served as a captivating theme throughout the annals of photographic history. Photographers such as Danny Lyon, Bruce Davidson and Larry Clark made masterpieces with their investigations into the subcultures of renegade bikers, street gangs, and rebellious adolescents teetering on the dramatic cusp of adulthood. However, Hashiguchi is distinguished by a uniquely unwavering dedication to this theme. The sheer breadth of his travels in Tokyo and the West alike, coupled with a rapt intensity for documenting the “troubled youth” of the 1980s, evinces a scale and specificity rarely attempted and arguably even unrivalled.

Since its initial publication in 1982, We Have No Place to Be has influenced generations of artists and photographers in Japan. One such artist and close friend is none other than Yoshitomo Nara, who has contributed an essay reflecting upon the legacy of the publication since its original release as well as his own time spent as a youth in Europe during the ‘80s.

SIGNED COPY.

• Xavier Barral 2021
  
• Hardback, 1st edition
  
• New
  

To celebrate the 10th title of the collection, we are publishing a new series of photographer Rinko Kawauchi. Last spring, she turned her lenses on swallows at the the birth season, and more particularly, on small nests the birds build away from prying eyes, made of ground, clay, water and dry herbs to protect their clutches. With all the poetry and sense of detail that characterize her work, Rinko Kawauchi reveals the magic of our daily life and the ephemeral beauty of suspended moments. The swallows, thanks to their sharp wings, perch everywhere with great ease and elegance, filled with an opalescent light.

This publication is part of the Des oiseaux (On birds) collection celebrating, through the vision of different artists, their immense presence in a world where they are now vulnerable. 

English edition.

• Akio Nagasawa 2021
• Softcover, 1st edition
• New

“Shinobu” the first volume of a four books new series by Daido Moriyama: “Woman in the Night”.

There was a woman called Shinobu in Shinjuku’s red light quarter.
She was a person who loved flowers.
It’s already ten years since I last saw her.
Even now, I still think of her sometimes.
This is a profile of her as she appears in my memory.

Edition of 350 signed and numbered copies with a silk-screen canvas cover.


Please note: Due to the material used on the cover and pages being smaller than the cover, corners may present as being bent (but are not).  See example photo.

• Match & Co 2015
• Hardback, 1st English edition
• New

The book before you contains five of the seventeen essays that make up Life on the Wrong Side of Town: Sports Edition, which orginally appeared as a series in the magazine Mondai Shosetsu ("Problem Novels", published by Tokuma Shoten) in 1975 and was then published as a single volume by Shinyosha in 1982, the year before Terayama passed away. By adding Moriyama-san's photographs to the text we have constructed a new edition.

While putting this project together, I went back to Terayama's words as expressed in many literary forms - haiku, tanka, poetry, ruminations, essays, novels, scripts, theatrical productions and dramas. The enormous volume and quality of his output was overwhelming, but I eventually settled on this work, Life on the Wrong Side of Town: Sports Edition. The reason lay in this passage form the Afterword.

"This book is a kind of rear window view of the life of what we call sportsmen. From the rear window you can see the river. Sometimes you can see people saying goodbye. But however miserable the view is, you have to keep the rear window open."

-Excerpt from Satoshi Machiguchi's afterword The Spell Moves On, published in Daido Moriyama: Terayama (2015)

Signed.