I received this question from Gabriel Benaim, who had written inquiring about Koyuki Tayama’s books:
What would you put in your top 5 list for Japanese photobooks in print (or reasonably found)?
Limiting the list to books in print (or reasonably found) makes it a lot easier for me to answer, because I’m not sitting on a huge collection of rare books. Four of the five books on this list I actually own, which I think is important. The memory of a great exhibit might stay with you for weeks or years, but a photobook is an object you live with. Your relationship to it might change as you look at it during different times. So here’s the list, in no particular order:
Rinko Kawauchi, Utatane. Little More, 2001. ¥3000
Hiromi Tsuchida, Zokushin. Tosei-sha, 2004 edition (the original is from 1976 but this is better anyway). ¥7500
Ume Kayo, Ume-me. Little More, 2000, ¥2000.
Yasuko Noguchi, Sakurabito. Vacuum Press, ¥1050.
Aya Fujioka, I Don’t Sleep. Akaaka-sha, 2009. ¥5000
Tayama’s books are all sold out, by the way, so they don’t really qualify for this list. I’ve added a couple of links to Japan Exposures where they carry the book, otherwise “reasonably found” may still entail some kind of convoluted ordering process. “Reasonable for Japan”?
This is my first listicle. It’s gonna get me tons of hits right?
Yes, “Zokushin” is pretty good. The best part is the forest party scene, and this is very good indeed. But for me, a lot of the rest doesn’t come close. I have a copy of the book and enjoy it, but I’ve always thought of it as a four- rather than a five-star work.
Sorry, the others that you list do little for me.
Right then, how about this bunch? (Photographers’ names in their original order. The books are in no particular order.)
Suda Issei 須田一政, “Min’yō sanga” (民謡山河), 2007. Mining a vein close to that of “Zokushin” As far as I can remember, there’s not a word of English in it, but then there’s hardly a word of Japanese in it either.
Dodo Shunji 百々俊二, “Ōsaka” (大阪) / “Osaka”, 2010. Large-format views of, you guessed it, Osaka. Lots of material, all good. (Well, ten or twenty percent could have been shaved off it.) Generously captioned and essayed in both Japanese and English.
Kikai Hiroo 鬼海弘雄 (though “Hiroh Kikai” for this book), “Asakusa Portraits”, 2008. All right, it’s not a Japanese book, it’s a US/German book. But particularly if you get it at the cut price offered by the usual oligopolists, the authentically Japanese predecessor “Perusona” (ぺるそな) doesn’t compete, while the lavish and superbly printed original “Persona” is no longer available new. Portraits of people in Asakusa, taken over years and years.
Nagano Shigeichi 長野重一, “Nagano Shigeichi” (長野重一), alternatively titled “Hysteric 14”, 2005. An edition of under a thousand copies; and the fact that unsold copies are still plentiful five years after publication while the stores seem to move cartloads of trendy blankness by Homma and Sanai just goes to show that people have no taste. This is a retrospective by Nagano — though he’s still working in his mid-eighties, and long may he flourish.
Fukuhara Shinzō 福原信三 and Fukuhara Rosō 福原路草, “Hikari to sono kaichō: Fukuhara Shinzō, Fukuhara Rosō: 1913-nen–1941-nen” (光とその諧調：福原信三・福原路草：1913年–1941年) / “The Light with Its Harmony: Shinzo Fukuhara / Roso Fukuhara: Photographs 1913–1941”, 1992. Yes, close to twenty years old, but new copies are still available. (Or they were three days ago, at “Syabi”.) The English text is a bit odd, and not as informative as that in at least one alternative — but, despite its age, this is the book with the best reproductions of the brothers’ work. Pace Ina Nobuo and a lot of other critics, but the reviled (outmoded, sentimental, etc etc) “pictorialism” can have quite a bit going for it, as we see here.