Street Level Japan

It almost seems like Vivian Maier’s photographs are coming to light by pure chance—“I acquired Vivian’s negatives while at a furniture and antique auction,” wrote the man who bought them. She’s been unknown until now, but a default template Blogger blog is certainly changing that.

She was born in France but lived most of her life in Chicago, where she took photos. This is the really the most exciting thing I’ve seen online in a while. There are more details to come about Maier’s life, but it’s compelling to watch this unfold. It’s interesting to compare this to what you see linked up on BOOOOOOOOM…

via LPV twitter

this looks 5x better in print…

Short version of this post: check out the show by Arata Masuda over at Konica Minolta Plaza in Shinjuku. [map] It’s called “Rooftop Paradise,” and it’s up until October 23. I highly recommend it.

I went to meet a friend in Shinjuku today, but I got there a bit early so I decided to see what was up at Konica Minolta Plaza, one of the many “maker” galleries in Tokyo, along with other spaces run by Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Ricoh, Fuji and Epson. (!) I didn’t know what was there, but Konica Minolta is always hit and miss, which is actually a step up from most of the other maker galleries which are usually full of junk.

As it happens, Monday the gallery is actually closed, but I “misunderstood” a sign outside the elevator and walked in, where the Arata exhibit was already set up. I made one pass of the exhibit, which I hastened when I heard some whispering outside to the effect of “some crazy foreigner just walked in” “foreigner?” “yes a foreigner.”

I’ll definitely going back for a slower look, because the photos are great. Arata went to the rooftops of department stores and found some incredible images there. The show is big, so not everything hits the mark, but in many cases he finds a balanced composition between people, buildings, trees and whatever else happens to be on top of department stores. This composition reminds me of Gocho Shigeo, who might be one of my favorites:

This image of Gocho’s is one of the only ones I could find online but no matter. If you’re in Shinjuku over the next couple of weeks, stop by and check the Arata show out.

I made this print at a rental darkroom in Tokyo a few months ago, but I’m looking for an enlarger so I can do all this stuff from the comfort (?) of my own apartment. If you are in Tokyo and have a beat on a spare enlarger, please get in touch.

grace-kim.com

She went in the rooms after the couples had left. That access is impressive, given how important privacy is to these businesses, at least in Japan. The series works as a whole, but strangely I really want to see this in color.

[big up Nicole for the tip]

My friend Phillip took this picture of me at a top secret spot in Tokyo where the light you’re seeing is “naturally occurring.”

Philip is a photography student at San Jose State, and he was in Japan for a month long program this summer. I can’t imagine there’s a better place to spend a month as a photography student than Japan…

My friend John sent me a link to Mika Kitamura’s site a few weeks ago. There’s a lot of work up there, but I liked her series “?????????” or “From one roll of film” the best. Looking at the work by Fukuyama Emi and Yamashita Tsuneo has been pushing me towards more empty compositions, and these photos make me think along the same lines.

As it happens, the first five photos on 415Kurt’s photostream strike me in the same way as this other work. They are night shots of San Francisco houses with a strong feeling for the city.

This post comes late, but there are still a few more days left to check out the “Japan: Self Portait” exhibit at the Setagaya Art Museum. The exhibit is a survey of postwar Japanese photography. Here’s the link to the Tokyo Art Beat entry, which includes all the information you’d need to make it out. (I suggest a bike ride to the park, if possible.)

Tadahiko Hayashi, “Return of Ginza-bura,” 1950. This looks about 500 times better in real life

Apart from the pleasure of walking through many comfortably large rooms of black and white photographs, I enjoyed thinking about different contexts for viewing a photograph. Some of these pictures could have been tossed off by the photographer, without much thought towards history, but now we might read something much different in them.

Whether you can make it to the show or not, the interview with curator and blogger Marc Feustel at Japan Exposures about this exhibit is worth reading, for an inside perspective on Japanese photography.

The current show at Totem Pole Photo Gallery, Emi Fukuyama’s “Followed By the Moon 4,” is really worth seeing if you’re in Tokyo during the next week. (It closes Sunday June 21.) Totem Pole is one of the strongest galleries in Tokyo, but this exhibition might be the best I’ve seen there.

a photo by Emi Fukuyama, from a previous show

The photographs in this show are all taken from positions that my friend called “awkward”—he pointed out that in almost each image, there’s something blurred in the foreground. This could be distracting, but the resistance draws your eye in to the rest of the frame, where something’s waiting for you, like umbrellas hanging outside an apartment, or chairs by a pool. The consistently expressive composition and lush black-and-white printing makes for a strong mood from start to finish. My friend and I walked out wanting to shoot a lot, which is a sign of a winning show.

Please enjoy, and let me know if you make it out, I’m curious to hear other responses.

[map to Totem Pole Photo Gallery]

the blog world is still so new! the current stars are skilled at putting on a grand show, like chaplin. who knows, maybe even the more thoughtful ones (keaton, in my image) won’t survive the next wave…

i used a darkroom today. i like black and white film because i think it’s EASY. today i made four contact sheets and four prints. none of the prints are ready to be exhibited, 3 are not centered properly on the paper, but in all of last YEAR, even with my scanner, i made probably no more than 15 prints, which was the whole idea of getting it in the first place. scanning is such pain, everything is guesswork! “how’s the calibration of my monitor, how’s the calibration of the lab’s printer, if i move this curve 5 pixels down does the photo actually look better, and WHY IS IT THAT walgreens almost makes my color film look better anyway…” not to mention the soul-crushing tedium of scanning. the darkroom is simple and rewarding.

FEEL ME FLOW

i also saw araki’s latest show today. it’s called Araki 69, he’s turning 69 years old and he shot it with a 6×9 camera. i would say the photos are like “Araki photos made with a 6×9 camera,” in other words he translated his style accurately to the format. here’s an interesting interview with Araki, it makes me feel a bit ashamed for having so little to say about him WHEN HE’S PUBLISHED 450 BOOKS, if that’s even true. “Kofuku Shashin” sounds interesting, though.

Sokyu-sha is one of the many galleries which are around Shinjuku Gyoen, a nicely manicured park in the middle of Shinjuku. To the side of the gallery space is one of the most interesting photography bookstores in Tokyo. It’s not the biggest, but it has a really strong selection of black and white books, including many publications which I haven’t seen anywhere else. Let’s take a look.

I have updated all of these “trip” posts with a link to a map of the place. Here’s the map of Sokyu-sha.

The main shelves. The book on display here is Asako Narahashi’s “Half Awake and Half Asleep in the Water,” which I would really like

In the middle is a long table, which is mostly full of high-level, more recent books. Older stuff is on the shelves

Requisite issues of Moriyama’s “Record” series. Still managed to pass up the Osaka one, which is on the right here

A bookcase full of what I assume is photography history and criticism. I can speak a reasonable amount of Japanese but kanji is still beyond me

Here’s where Sokyu-sha really shines. These are issues of a small photography publication which I’ve never seen before

I bought the issues of “LP” for 500yen each, and the white book on the left. This book is amazing and only cost 1000yen, I will write about it later

Not exactly zines, but tiny publications printed on cheap paper which are mostly text. Still interesting, and again, I don’t know yet where else to find this kind of thing

I just saw this series by RJ Shaughnessy called “Your Golden Opportunity Is Comeing Very Soon.” I’m digging it a lot, lately I’ve been taking pictures of the textures in Tokyo and this really resonates. Simple and effective, shoot on!

Via We can shoot too

There is a talk by Kenya Hara, art director of MUJI, in which he explains why he thinks that Japanese culture (!) should be thought of as valuing “emptiness,” rather than “simplicity.” This distinction can be traced all the way back to the construction of a Shinto shrine, which at its center is always an empty space enclosed by four pillars, bound at the top with straw. The building around this space is not all that important. The empty space is more valuable, because it offers the possibility of being filled.

To cite Hara’s more modern example, we can look at the design of knives from America and Japan. The handle of an American knife might have a molded grip, which means it can be held in only one way. That’s simple. A Japanese knife, though, will have a cylindrical handle, which can accommodate whatever style the cook may wish to use. Hara calls this knife empty.

The photographs in Yamashita Tsuneo’s “Another time on the Ryuku Islands” made me think of that talk. I wanted to call his photographs “simple,” but maybe I should say that they’re empty. What does this mean? The photos are a vehicle for transmitting the experience of being on the islands. Like the building around a shrine, they’re not actually that important. You might forget that you are looking at photographs.

Walking around the exhibit, I felt connected to this place in Okinawa. It’s strange to say, but a close up photograph of a large, still-wet squid lying on a wooden table gave me the impression of what the air on the Ryuku islands would feel like.

I can’t guarantee that you will have a similar experience, but perhaps if you go to the gallery without thinking very much, you’ll feel the same way.

All of these photos are from a different series, “Daily.” They are also all © Yamashita Tsuneo