Collecting Photobooks2

Another photobook by Ume Kayo, this time on her hometown of Noto, Hokkaido prefecture. Might be a tad too niche for me? but this one's not too disappointing.

Published: 2016

Purchased: 7/?/2021

$15

Published: 1977

Purchased: 6/2/2021

$30

Published:

Purchased: 10/8?/2020

$7

Published: 1987

Purchased: 10/1/2020

$12

In a break from other Long Sixties photobooks, there's photos from behind the protests, looking at how the students operated and lived. Physically it's on the smaller side.

Published: 2018

Purchased: 10/1/2020

$10

A best of photobook by Hamaguchi including Minamata victims, USAF crashes, American occupation, and post-war economic weirdness. The guy in the top left is trading his pachinko winnings for two daikons.

Published: 1995

Purchased: 1/27/2020

$7

!Contains images of gore!

aaaaaaaaaaaa

Published: 2009

Purchased: 1/12/2020

$7

Author's Site

This photobook is a collage of innocence, pictures of 13 secret bases built by kids inside suburban forests and in between houses. Nature photography but about pillow forts. The photographer even managed to interview some of the kids, and their quotes periodically dot every other photo. A comfy book that will unravel any reader's adult persona.

Published: 2010

Purchased: 11/15/2019

$3

Found a photobook by Ume Kayo that I really liked at bookoff. I usually skip over landscape or portrait albums unless it's ethnographic stuff and this one centers around the ordinary. Street photography of people in the author's home town, filled with the benign charm of a small Japanese community. These are the sort of photos I'd like to take more of. She shoots with a Canon EOS 5.

these sold pretty well across japan.

Published: 2006

Purchased: 12/10/2019

$7

Found another photobook by Ume Kayo and her most famous one, Umeme. Both my sister and my mom has seen a copy somewhere. More benign charm of a small town. Here's some of my favorite shots:

These are the kind of photos I want to take more of. back to top ⤴

Published: 2013

Purchased: 11/20/2019

$12

Got a new photography book by the late Kikujiro Fukushima. I bought it for $12USD which is a tad pricy, and it has a bit of commentary mixed in with the photos so the presentation is less pleasing. Regardless, fantastic photos of Hiroshima post-bombing, Japanese self-defence forces rearmament, Sanrizuka protests, Tokyo University protests, etc.: Events and controversies that defined post-war Japan.

Fukushima's story is fucking insane, being ordered to charge at American tanks with torpedos on a beach in WWII after being drafted for the second time. His work as a welfare officer with Atomic bombing victims wholly neglected by the government got him to pursue photojournalism during post-war Japan, chasing after subjects like JSDF rearmament, leftist protests, and Zainichi Korean poverty. Fukushima used to get death threats from Japanese monarchists for publishing photos like these, his house was burned down, and he was was repeatedly denied journalist passes and blacklisted from interviews. He shot with a variety of Nikon SLRs.

Published: 2013

Purchased: 11/3/2019

Free

Visited a Myohoji temple known for their activism and I spotted a 60's anti-Vietnam war protests photobook. Asked one of the priests if I could buy it, and they gave it to me? Like Halloween, I agonized whether I should actually attend, but this in my hands blew away any doubt. New experiences are good. In a return to form, anti-imperialist and pacifist protests erupted all over Japan after the Vietnam war kicked off. American jets regularly crashed into homes killing dozens of people and conglomerates like Mitsubishi and the shipping industry were benefitting from an American war that was using their country as a launchpad. So much for state pacifism. This photobook is about protestors in Tachikawa resisting efforts to expand an American airbase.

You can see a few M79's among the riot police for crowd dispersion, ironic. back to top ⤴

Published: 1978

Purchased: 10/24/2019

$12

The initial construction of Narita airport in Chiba prefecture faced opposition from residents refusing to sell their land and their fight against the central government was galvanized by leftist student protesters and anarchists. As a whole Leftism was reinvigorated by the lingering memories of American occupation and Japan's participation in the Korean and Vietnam war. To this day Narita airport is a lot smaller than initially envisioned precisely because of these protests. Unimaginable for something like this to happen today with the amount of political apathy up in the air. Overjoyed at finding this at Book-off, although I'm kicking myself 2 months later for missing the Zengakuren photobook. Older Japanese photobooks like these typically only had 1 printing run and are unobtanium as a whole.

Created: 1/27/2020

Published: 1987

Purchased 10/17/2021 $12

This was it, the series of photographs that got the photographer stabbed and his house set on fire. JSDF rearmament, domestic arms production, American occupation, Sanrizuka, Minamata.

Published: 1995

Purchased 8/1/2021 $3

1999 August Coup, post-Perestroika Russia

On the Nakagin Capsule Tower

Published: 2020

Purchased: 11/8/2021

$15

back to top ⤴

Published: 1975

Purchased 3/24/2022

Published: 2008

Purchased 4/6/2022

Historical context (wiki) |

Published: 2020

Purchased //2023

Published: 1990

Purchased 4/1/2024 $12

Published: 2016

Purchased 2/2024 $4

Published: 2013

Purchased 4/2024 $10

"A photobook with portraits and room introductions of cosplayers, mangaka, idols, designers, artists, and other otaku-adjacent women in the Tokyo/Osaka metropolitan area"

Published: 2016

Purchased 6/2024 $20

"102 normal women with distinctive individualities, a photographic resource of rooms and their owners. Underground idol, streamer, vocalist, model, housewife, troupe staff, esthetician, band member, radio DJ, technopop singer, contemporary artist, mangaka assistant, maid, game designer, magical girl in training, angel of love, curry shop worker, etc."

Published: 2015

Purchased 9/2024 $25