“Fragrance Petit” is the name of a photobook Aya Takada published in May of this year. It’s a quite small book (9×13cm), in an edition of 30, which she made by hand. Part of me wishes I could say that handmade photobooks are “big in Japan,” but outside of Aya and Koyuki Tayama I’m not sure that it’s really taking off here.
The blue inside paper is a nice touch, and it reflects the distinctly chilly mood of “Fragrance Petit.” It’s not that I feel a cold emotion from the book, but that these photos were all taken in the dead of winter! In descending order of severity, the Russian, Korean and Japanese winters are all represented here. As a Californian I feel cold just looking at these photos.
In a lot of Aya’s other work she plays with flash and the texture of interiors (one time, my head got in the way). There’s a little bit of flash here, but she’s outside most of the time, showing what usually seem to be provincial cities. I’d say she’s often looking up and out, not down and in. It’s a bit different from what I normally think of as an Aya photo, but the results are sometimes really excellent. I especially like this photo, which splits the frame into three or maybe four parts:
You can also see a couple of other images from the book when it was featured on Laurence Vecten’s One year of books. I think there are still a few more copies for sale, if you’re interested Aya is really active on Facebook and Twitter.
Aya says she is currently working on a series of photos that are, in her words, “gorgeous.” I am intrigued.
Aya Takada just put up a lot of new photos on her Flickr, here is a small selection. When I said I wanted to post an edit these photos she said, “be careful! these photos are ヤバイ” – using one of the best slang words in Japanese, which can mean “awesome/tight” but also “super rough/sketchy.” You can probably guess which meaning she meant in this case.
When Aya was featured on Japan Exposures, some of the commenters were bummed that she was shooting things in Tokyo’s infamous Kabukicho district [<—awesome link] without the “in your face“ approach that (Western??) audiences have come to expect (or emulate???). Aya shoots at lot in Kabukicho, but she finds the empty spaces there. It’s not that she’s not hardcore, either, because she is…
Check Aya out on Tumblr and Mindfist.
A commenter recently suggested that photoblogs might be a good way for people outside of Japan to get a feel for what’s going on here. Photoblogs and “blog blogs” written by Japanese photographers definitely exist, but I think by and large they are independent and personal (if not almost private) endeavors; not many Japanese photographers have taken to social media.
With that in mind, I want to heartily direct you to Aya Takada’s new Tumblr. Aya is a thoughtful photographer with a deep and personal knowledge of Japanese photography, especially the Shinjuku street scene. She is in tune with online media (she’s an active Twitter user too), and so far she’s posted a number of interesting things I hadn’t seen before. These kinds of sites both need and deserve your attention.
