Street Level Japan

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

Sitting in my apartment a few days ago, I felt a strong desire to look at Hamburger Eyes, a San Francisco photo magazine. (The SF photo magazine.) Maybe I could have found a few images online, but I wanted to hold the printed article in my hands. It’s funny to think I was so cynical about Hamburger Eyes when I first started writing about it. Now I can’t think of anything fresher, pick it up if you don’t have it yet.

so i did find stuff online but how good is this really to look at?

I was going to Shibuya so I stopped off at my favorite place to kill time there, LOGOS bookstore. Shibuya is always a zoo, and LOGOS is a good place to take a mental break. (As it happened, they were showing off a bunch of Daido Moriyama stuff.) I wasn’t thinking about chasing down Hamburger Eyes, I just wanted to flip through some photo books and magazines. Once I got there and started poking around, though, I remembered that I’d seen Hamburger Eyes there before. Sure enough, the pride of SF was still in stock.

It’s enjoyable to pick up a copy of a book that you already own, but haven’t seen in a while. This time I enjoyed looking at “Most Beautiful Apes,” a series of photos from San Francisco in the 1970s. Stefan Simikich’s snapshots really grabbed me too. Hamburger Eyes is totally wide open, there’s no visual dogma but you can see a common spirit behind the photos, like a really intense curiosity which could lead you anywhere. It felt good to look at, and I was ready to delve into the rest of what LOGOS had to offer.

a spread of “Most Beautiful Apes” by Michael Jang

One shelf down, “I Heart Magazine,” an NYC publication which has the words “Street Photography” printed on the cover. This is sort of cool, but the question “what is street photography?” isn’t one that can be answered so easily, as these discussions will show. So this didn’t really bode well, and the stuff inside looks all the same, as if the photographers were working from some template of what a “street photograph” should look like, namely: between 1 and 4 people should be in the frame, the subject should be in the center, all subjects should be within 10ft of the photographer, and the subject should be somehow kinda “zany,” like a girl flashing the photog in a supermarket or a dog in a stroller (!). The evidence is on the site.

if it says “street photography” on the cover…

After looking at Hamburger Eyes, this was like drinking plain water to wash down a delicious taco.

Later I flipped through Hiroh Kikai’s Asakusa Portraits. There’s an interview with Kikai at the front, it sounds like he’s basically ignored here. He has almost never exhibited in Tokyo, but for 30 years he’s been making portraits in Asakusa. His work is served well by great titles, like “A man who muttered under his breath, ‘That’s an expensive camera,’” or “A man who traveled a long distance to eat eel.”

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

I was serious! As a living deity of photography, Moriyama is all over the place in Tokyo. (So is Araki, but that’s a different post.) Here are some pictures I took at LOGOS Books in Shibuya, where there’s a month long feature on Moriyama, I think for no reason in particular though I can’t be totally sure.

(But mostly Moriyama)

Bold t-shirts

$50 each

The back of the shirts

I did a bad job of taking a picture of most of the books, which are sitting on this shelf. But down here are issues of “Record,” Moriyama’s own periodical photo mag, which is printed beautifully. (It sells for a little over $20.)

The cover of Record no. 10, and a reminder of why I can’t be seriously cynical about Moriyama’s vast exposure.

I know there are only so many times that I’m going to be able to pass up Record no. 11, which was shot in Moriyama’s old stomping grounds of Osaka, in summertime—and probably in a weekend, if not one day. There’s a lot of photos from in and around Shinsekai, and that flavor really comes through the page.

There you have it, even in the midst of this frankly absurd amount of paraphernalia—and this is not the only time I’ve seen this much Moriyama junk in one place—I still can’t deny Daido his talent. It’s a bit maddening actually.