Japanese Photobooks

• Akaaka 2024
  
• Softcover, 1st edition, 112pp
  
• New

Japan promised by law to adhere to the Three Non-Nuclear Principles not to possess, produce, or permit the introduction of nuclear weapons. But nuclear weapons were brought here. Nuclear bombs were stored and retrieved here. Something that shouldn't be had existed here. Nagasawa's photographs of this place bring to our attention faint memories that lie behind what is shown in the photographs. The people who knew that time are disappearing, giving way to a new generation of Bonin Islanders. It is a past of loss and forgetfulness. Nagasawa has unearthed and made visual the secret room-a void severed from time and space.

Nagasawa photographed the series on the island of Chichijima, part of a remote archipelago south of mainland Japan.

For twenty-three years after the end of World War II, Chichijima was occupied by the U.S. military. During this time, only military personnel, their families, and the people already living there were allowed on the island. Most of what happened in this period remains unknown, but it was later revealed that the U.S. placed a nuclear warhead called “Mary’s Lamb” on the island.

In his series, Nagasawa enters the bunker where Mary’s Lamb was once kept. His photographs interrogate the halls, the floors, the flaking paint, the rusting metal surfaces, as if asking them for clues or their memories.

Slipcased softcover, H224mm x W343mm.  Text in English and Japanese.

• Akaaka 2022
  
• Softcover, 1st edition, 64pp
  
• New

Receiving high acclaim both within Japan and overseas, Yoshihiko Ueda has continued to present work on the frontline throughout his career of 40 years. His oeuvre profoundly reflects his consistent perspective, thoughts, and personality as a photographer. Portraits, forests, family, rivers, buildings, human remains from the Jomon period, portraits of "paper," apple trees... Expressing a desire to "discover how the world came to be" and to "affirm the transience that permeates the impermanence within which we live," Ueda's photographs are a manifestation of many years of meticulously developing his concepts and exploring various motifs.

In Latin, mater means mother/source, Mäter derives from the Indo-European root word mehter (mother), and has the same etymology as the English word mother. The original meaning of the Latin word materia is "tree trunk." The trunk is thought to be the "womb" of life, and materia originates from the word mater.

• Akaaka 2025
• Hardback, reprinted edition, 168p
• New

Masahisa Fukase's timeless masterpiece "Yoko" finally available again

Originally published in 1978, Masahisa Fukase's "Yoko" stands as a defining series in his body of work, yet it had long been out of print. Now, nearly half a century later, this extraordinary photobook returns, brought to life with the full support of Yoko Miyoshi (formerly Fukase), Fukase's model and muse, and under the careful supervision of Tomo Kosuga, director of the Masahisa Fukase Archives. This new reprint edition faithfully includes all photographs and texts from the original edition.

Additionally, it includes contemporaneous texts referenced at the time of the original publication, an essay by Masako Toda (photography critic and historian), and a heartfelt message from Yoko Miyoshi on the occasion of this reissue. Every aspect of the book's design and composition has been meticulously crafted to reaffirm the significance of this masterpiece and the passage of time it has endured.

Fukase and Yoko met in 1963 and were married in 1964. In the 1960s, they lived together as newlyweds at the Soka-Matsubara public housing complex, where Fukase began photographing Yoko. In the 1970s, he continued to capture her in various locations, including his hometown of Hokkaido, her birthplace of Kanazawa, as well as Izu, Kyoto, and other places. In the autumn of 1973, Fukase created a series titled "Untitled (From the Window)," capturing Yoko's elegant poses every morning as she left for work, taken from the fourth-floor window of their home using a telephoto lens. These photographs were published intermittently between 1964 and 1976 in the magazine Camera Mainichi.
In 1974, Fukase's works were included in the "New Japanese Photography" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. During this period, the couple traveled to New York, and the scenes from this journey were also captured in his photographs.

For this new reprint edition, the book's format has been expanded to amplify the presence of each photograph, and the cover has also been renewed. In addition, the pages featuring ravens – ominous yet poetic symbols that seemed to foretell the future of the couple – are now arranged with greater stillness and deliberation, inviting viewers to engage more deeply with every image.

In revisiting "Yoko," one must ask: What, ultimately, did Fukase capture through his lens? Against the backdrop of the era's spirit, the photobook contemplates the essential question of photography - the nature of relationships between two individuals.

• Akaaka 2025
• Hardback, reprinted edition, 128p
• New

Homo Ludens, Masahisa Fukase's first photobook, finally revived after half a century.

This anthology of photographs, taken over more than ten years and edited by Camera Mainichi editor Shoji Yamagishi, is a collection that marks the origin of Fukase's work and is filled with images and essence that would shape Fukase's later creations, is structured into six sections, each vividly capturing the interplay between photography and life.

"To" (Slaughter) features images of Yoko Wanibe, whom Fukase accompanied to a slaughterhouse, juxtaposing the dismemberment of livestock with Yoko posing in a black cloak. "Kotobuki" (Congratulation) straightforwardly depicts his life with Yoko shortly after they got married, in a manner reminiscent of a private novel. "Gi" (Frolic) portrays the underground scene in Shinjuku where Fukase had gone after leaving the home he shared with Yoko, and the lifestyle of young people living together as a group. "Mei" (Memento), one of his earliest works, looks back on the pregnancy of his former partner, Yukiyo Kawakami, with whom he lived for eight years. Meanwhile, "Haha" (Mother) and "Fu" (Music) capture scenes of Yoko and her mother.

Throughout these sections, Homo Ludens conveys the mutual interplay of all living things, and the contradictory yet interconnected phenomena of life and death, meeting and parting. Fukase's lens is turned towards himself and those close to him, the images explore the essence of life as a form of play, with raw and unflinching honesty. This first photobook stands as a powerful testament to Fukase's vision.

This new reprint edition includes all photographs and texts from the original version and was designed with a focus on emphasizing the relationship between the images and surrounding negative space. This approach serves as a timeless response to Fukase's vision. Homo Ludens remains a significant work, with this new edition offering a renewed perspective not only on Fukase's oeuvre but also on the act of seeing itself and our own existence.

• Akaaka 2023
  
• Hardback, 3rd edition, 216pp
  
• New

"I never think that I can capture a certain subject by taking a photograph of it. What is important for me is how deeply I can enter into it, and to what degree I can cause it to reflect me. I want the very act of looking through the viewfinder to be a flesh-and-blood action... I strongly feel that photography can be freer, more open. I believe it is possible to relate to it in a way that encompasses my entire being."

- Masahisa Fukase, 1969

By focusing intently on his personal life, Masahisa Fukase carved out a unique place for himself in the history of Japanese photography in the 1960s. While exploring the origins of photography, Fukase developed a major practice among a group of artists associated with what later came to be known as shi-shashin ("I-photography").

Fukase pointed his camera at those in his immediate surroundings, including his wife and family; and while exposing his own private life, he consciously explored the madness that lay deep within himself. This madness led to remarkable and unparalleled works that combined Fukase's loving gaze for his subjects with his carefree sense of humor.

This book "Masahisa Fukase 1961-1991 Retrospective" boasts a substantial assemblage of works, including major Fukase works, such as "Yūgi (Homo Ludence)", "Yōko", "Karasu (Ravens)",  "Sasuke", "Kazoku (Family)", and "Bukubuku".

H220mm × W148mm. Text in Japanese and English.

2024 3rd edition.  

• Akio Nagasawa 2024
  
• Softcover, 1st edition, 96p
  
• New

Mika Ninagawa is renowned for her vibrant photography, capturing motifs like flowers, fireworks, and goldfish. This series blends these images with snapshots of her everyday life. This is the first volume of a trilogy released simultaneously.

Signed copy.

• Akio Nagasawa 2024
  
• Softcover, 1st edition, 96p
  
• New

Mika Ninagawa is renowned for her vibrant photography, capturing motifs like flowers, fireworks, and goldfish. This series blends these images with snapshots of her everyday life. This is the second volume of a trilogy released simultaneously.

Signed copy.

• Akio Nagasawa 2025
• Softcover, 1st edition
• New

'My own photo magazine Record is in its 19th year since relaunch, now getting to No. 59 in total. It was at Café Huit on top of a building in the middle of Shinjuku that has long gone, where I received a strong request from Mr. Akio Nagasawa, the current publisher, to relaunch that handmade and privately pressed zine that had failed and folded after the 5th issue, some 30+ years earlier. “Come on Moriyama-san, keep putting that Record out! I will make it, let’s start right away!” Those words, in that moment, revived my memories of the magazine that I had all but forgotten about, and all of a sudden I could see it right in front of me, shining in a bright new light. Without unnecessary ado, Mr. Nagasawa said “Okay, all you do is send me the photos you are taking these days, whenever you feel like it. Then we’ll just put them all in Record, and I won’t meddle with it.” For the next 19 years, most of the snapshots taken during the second half of my photographing life (except for the somewhat “commercial” stuff that sneaks in every now and then) have been collected in Record. Even the pictures that I brought home from travels and shootings abroad, ended up getting published in the form of one issue of Record. In other words, all of the myriad scenes of everyday life that I have captured with my camera in the later years of my life, have been converted into pages in that magazine, which means that everything in Record is a memory, a souvenir, a record in itself.

I really appreciate your enthusiasm, Mr. Nagasawa!

As long as my own spirits are high and my legs carry me, I will certainly keep on shooting.'

- Daido Moriyama

Signed copy. 

• Nazraeli Press 2025
• Hardback 1st edition
• New

Published to coincide with an exhibition of the same name, Los Angeles x Shinjuku presents a face-to-face selection of work from Daido Moriyama’s ongoing Shinjuku, Tokyo series and Avo Tavitian’s photographs of Los Angeles made over the past three decades.

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1954, Avo Tavitian’s journey to photography is marked by a profound connection to his changing surroundings. Shaped by the experience of moving to the Eastern shore of the United States with his family in the late 1960s, following the 1967 Middle East war, Tavitian developed a sense of being an outsider during his formative teen years in New Jersey and New York City, a sensibility that would later influence his work as a photographer after his relocation to Los Angeles in the mid-1980s.

Born in 1938 in Osaka, Japan, Daido Moriyama is a pivotal figure in contemporary photography, celebrated for his evocative black-and-white street photography that captures the essence of urban life. In recording the subcultures of Tokyo during his career he gravitated to the dense, dynamic and often gritty ward of Shinjuku. He employs a raw, spontaneous style characterized by high contrast and grainy textures. His iconic images explore themes of identity, memory, and the fleeting moments of everyday existence.

Tavitian and Moriyama both focus on framing everyday subjects, capturing moments on 35mm film while embracing the unpredictability of the medium. Their work reflects a deep fascination with urban landscapes and a curiosity about the mundane, as they seeks to document the changes and constants in his field of vision. Through their explorations, both photographers use the camera to navigate the complexities of belonging and identity in an ever-shifting human environment.

• Creo 2008
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New
  

"This is a photo story about the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, China. Completed in 2009, it once was the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. Due to the construction, it is said that approximately 1.9 million residents lost their native land. Many riverside towns that flourished along the waterways were forcibly destroyed, and as the water level inexorably continued to rise, the age-old history of this area, handed down from ancient times, came to an end. Although the publication of this book was many years ago, I believe it still serves as a showcase of the real China and hints at how this chaotic country is moving forward."

- Yasuhiro Ogawa

Signed copy.

Back in stock.

• Benrido 2024
• Set of 6 collotype prints
• New

Toshio Shibata’s “LANDSCAPE” is a series of compositional images of concrete retaining walls and erosion control dams in the mountains of Japan. These walls and dams, built with Japan’s advanced civil engineering technology, are strikingly beautiful and well proportioned, but at the same time, they are man-made objects that are incompatible with nature, yet in a sense they symbolize Landscape in modern Japan. This portfolio features six collotype prints of Shibata’s representative works taken in Niigata, Fukushima, Miyazaki, and Tochigi between 1989 and 1990. Please enjoy these prints, which are different from the original Gelatin silver prints.

Set of 6 black and white collotype prints printed by Benrido, Inc.

Print Size: 25.4 x 20.3cm. Case Size: 20.6 x 25.8 x 0.8cm

• PCT 2024
• Softcover, 1st PCT edition, 250p.
  
• New

New edition of the classic body of work, which saw Keizo Kitajima photographing New York in the 1980's.

Drawn to the land in which had dramatically changed the Japanese way of life since the war, Keizo Kitajima spent a period of six months wandering the streets of New York City. Here he met with the people whom embodied the very decadence which symbolised 80s New York. From the night clubs, parks, beaches and side streets, Kitajima's New York brilliantly captures a portrait of a city defined through the experiences of the many individuals and events, encountered throughout his journey.   

Originally published by Byakuya Shobo in 1982, Keizo Kitajima's New York has long been a sought-after photobook, this new book adds a series of colour images from 1986-1989, some of which were feautured in his equally sought-after book A.D. 1991.

This new edition features an afterword by Keizo Kitajima and an essay by Shino Kuraishi, in both Japanese and English.

In stock now.

• the(M) éditions / Ibasho 2024
• Softcover, 1st edition, 104p
  
• New

Watanabe’s second artist book features entirely new images from his latest series ‘Beyond What You See'. Like Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, Watanabe depicts the subjects in his photographs in-between the mystical and the real world, creating a sense of confusion in the viewer. Watanabe’s work has also something similar to the Japanese concept of ‘ma’, a moment of silence or emptiness for awareness and contemplation. His work stimulates the viewer to pause, reflect and engage with the world around us.

Limited edition of 400 numbered copies.

• Session Press 2017
• Softcover, 1st edition 216p
• NEW

One of the most influential photographers of our time, Nobuyoshi Araki is known for his diaristic style or “shi-shashin” (I-photographs) in the publication of over 500 books throughout his career. His work has become practically synonymous with Japanese photography; closely associated with bondage, sex, his late wife, Yoko, as well as still lifes and nudes. It is, however, less known that Araki had explored experimental film projects since the mid 1980s.

In 1986 at Cinema Rise in Tokyo, Araki staged a live performance entitled Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story). Using two projectors, Araki and his assistants, Nobuhiko Ansai and Shiro Tamiya, selected and sequenced slides to create a succession of overlapping images fading into one another, accompanied by a musical soundtrack. Tokyo Monogatari became the first in a series of live performances entitled Arakinema, which he staged until the mid-2000s in museums and art institutions around the world.
Blue Period and Last Summer are made up primarily of nudes and portraits alternating with street scenes and images of flowers. The majority of the work is derived from Shashin Jidai, the important underground sub culture magazine of the 1980s in Japan. Our publication singles out these two projects as they are essential to an understanding of his film work. As Araki explained at his initial meeting with Session Press publisher Miwa Susuda in Shinjuku in 2016, “The two films should be seen as a set, since Blue Period is about the past and Last Summer is about the future. By removing color using a chemical solution, Blue Period is about an act of subtraction, whereas adding color to the images in Last Summer is about an act of addition. This project is just like life itself.”

Working directly from the 140 original slides used for both projections, the book successfully offers a fresh review of the photographer’s hidden oeuvre and regains the true spirit and atmosphere of the original Arakinema performances.

Sealed.

• Akio Nagasawa 2024
• Softcover, 1st edition. 104p
• New 

My daughter took me for a ride in her car the other day, and drove me to Yokohama. I hadn’t been there for quite a long time, so I was happy to roam the streets of Yokohama with my camera in my hand, always ready to shoot. We parked the car near Kannai Station, and after walking for a while, we arrived at Isezakicho. When I looked up, I noticed (the female singer) Mina Aoe smiling down at me from a giant billboard, and being happily reminded once again that I was in Yokohama, I took quite a few snapshots. That was when I caught sight of a group of cheerful girls parading on the other side of the street, which instantly had me clicking away to all sides. The streets were getting crowded, and seeing the skyscrapers of “Minatomirai” behind the buildings along the avenues, I couldn’t help but feel strongly impressed at how much Yokohama had changed.

Before – in fact quite a long time ago – I often made trips to Tokyo together with the photographer Takuma Nakahira, who was also living in Zushi back then. We would take a train on the Yokosuka Line, and then change to the Toyoko Line at Yokohama. But once we were at Yokohama, instead of jumping on the next train, it happened ever so often that we walked out of the station on a whim, down to the Sakuragicho area, and into a coffee shop where we would end up drinking coffee for hours. Even when I suggested walking around a bit more and taking photos in the neighborhood, Nakahira was only interested in the scenery around the port of Kawasaki at night, so over his coffee he just kept talking happily about things and people. like Godard, or the songs of Mina Mazzini, my favorite singer at the time.

When I think about it now, my only memories related to Yokohama are those of Nakahira shooting like crazy when the two of us eventually went to the port of Kawasaki at night, and then again at the time of his exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art.
The present cityscape of Yokohama has piqued my curiosity.

I guess I will continue going there every now and then, and take a bunch of photos."

– Daido Moriyama

Signed copy.

• Nazraeli Press 2024
  
• Hardback, 1st edition, 16p with print
  
• New
  

In 2015, Daido Moriyama stopped in Los Angeles to photograph the westside following a museum opening of his work in Houston. For two days, he photographed in Santa Monica, Venice and the Marina, in alleyways and private homes. The resulting photographs are presented in his newest contributions to our One Picture Book Series: Daido "Uno" (black and white) and Daido "Dos" (color).

Small format hardback 6" x 8 1/2", 16 pages. Limited to 500 numbered copies, each including a 5"x7" original print that has been signed by the artist.

• Nazraeli Press 2024
  
• Hardback, 1st edition, 16p with print
  
• New
  

In 2015, Daido Moriyama stopped in Los Angeles to photograph the westside following a museum opening of his work in Houston. For two days, he photographed in Santa Monica, Venice and the Marina, in alleyways and private homes. The resulting photographs are presented in his newest contributions to our One Picture Book Series: Daido "Uno" (black and white) and Daido "Dos" (color).

Small format hardback 6" x 8 1/2", 16 pages. Limited to 500 numbered copies, each including a 5"x7" original print that has been signed by the artist.

• Roshin Books 2024
  
• Hardback, 1st edition, 80p
  
• New
  

Born in Aomori in 1924, Ichiro Kojima depicted the lives of people living in the harsh environment of Japan’s Tohoku region. Under the vast sky, he faced the landscapes spread before him with his camera in hand.
 
His career as a photographer lasted only about ten years. Kojima, who passed away suddenly at the age of 39, left behind a dramatic world that still resonates with us today. Despite his attempts to distance himself from the images of Tsugaru, Kojima could never escape the persistent imagery of the Tohoku region that followed him everywhere.
 
This book offers a new perspective on Kojima’s journey, appealing both to those already familiar with his work and those discovering it for the first time.

Text in English and Japanese.  Edition of 1000 copies.

• Akio Nagasawa 2024
• Softcover, 1st edition. 104p
• New 

'Let’s assume there is some brainwave that suddenly prompts me to think about the present state of photography in Japan.

Fact of the matter is, I’m quite simply not really interested in such things in the first place, because no matter what I came up with as an answer, you would reply that photography and photographers in Japan, and just about everywhere else in the world, have long been living in their own respective bubble, seriously dedicated to their own thing in their own reality. That would make perfect sense to me, and as a result, I would once again get caught up in a state of mind unable to pursue – let alone answer – the question what exactly photography means to me now.

A photograph is something that fragmentarily reflects the sensibility and sensitivity of a photographer in the very moment he or she releases the shutter, and the things in it instantly become the photographer’s own. But once it is reproduced and printed or exhibited, it disperses into the multifariously shaded folds of the audience’s gaze, where it establishes itself as a unique and hard new reality, and as a manifestation of some kind of memory, which again works as a mighty, enigmatic tool that connects past, present and future.

It is nothing more and nothing less than a camera, and we photographers can only take our hats off to Monsieur Nicéphore Niépce and thank him for inventing it.
These are the things that I have on my mind as I look back on another day of wandering around and taking snapshots in the streets; another day of asking myself what photography is all about, and being reminded that it’s just the great thing that it is.'

- Daido Moriyama

Signed copy.

• Akio Nagasawa 2024
• Softcover, 1st edition. 34p
• New 

'One day in the early 1990s, I tried some makeup because I was too bored.

My appearance was so ridiculous that I took photos of it.

This is me on that day.'

- Daido Moriyama

Edition of 350 signed and numbered copies with a silkscreen printed canvas cover.

• Blue Lotus Editions / Photo Editions 2024
• Hardback, 2nd edition, 100p
• New

Yasuhiro Ogawa’s new photobook Into the Silence captures the rugged yet timeless beauty of Japan’s northern region as he follows in the footsteps of the 17th Century poet Matsuo Bashō.

The story of Matsuo Bashō's journey through the northern provinces of Japan in the 17th century, is recounted in his travelogue "The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” ("Oku no Hosomichi”). In the summer of 1689, Bashō set out on his journey with his traveling companion Sora. They traveled on foot, carrying only minimal provisions and staying in humble lodgings along the way. Bashō was seeking inspiration for his poetry, and he found it in the natural beauty and cultural richness of the places he visited.

Like Bashō before him, Ogawa set out on a journey through the Tōhoku region, unlike Bashō, who traveled on foot with pen in hand, Ogawa preferred to move by train with camera in hand.  His photographs capture the rugged beauty of the landscape, from snow-covered mountains to misty forests and along deserted roads with glimpses of wild oceans, often shot through foggy windows on a train in motion. Through his lens, Ogawa reveals a world that is both remote and timeless, a world in stillness and motion.

Despite the passage of centuries, the challenges faced by Bashō on his journey are still evident in Ogawa’s photographs. The loneliness and isolation of the road are palpable in the shots of empty trains, lone tracks or roads and desolate hotel interiors. So are the physical challenges of traversing rough terrain and inclement weather documented in his muted photographs.  There is a marked contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the landscape and the harsh realities of life in this remote region. From plain coastal towns to empty streets, Ogawa’s images reveal the toll that economic decline and depopulation have taken on the area. Yet there remains a sense of hope and resilience.

Hardback 2nd edition (1st was softcover)

Signed copy. 

Copies of Into The Silence, with a signed print are available here.

• Blue Lotus Editions / Photo Editions 2024
• Hardback, 2nd edition, 100p
• New

Yasuhiro Ogawa’s new photobook Into the Silence captures the rugged yet timeless beauty of Japan’s northern region as he follows in the footsteps of the 17th Century poet Matsuo Bashō.

The story of Matsuo Bashō's journey through the northern provinces of Japan in the 17th century, is recounted in his travelogue "The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” ("Oku no Hosomichi”). In the summer of 1689, Bashō set out on his journey with his traveling companion Sora. They traveled on foot, carrying only minimal provisions and staying in humble lodgings along the way. Bashō was seeking inspiration for his poetry, and he found it in the natural beauty and cultural richness of the places he visited.

Like Bashō before him, Ogawa set out on a journey through the Tōhoku region, unlike Bashō, who traveled on foot with pen in hand, Ogawa preferred to move by train with camera in hand.  His photographs capture the rugged beauty of the landscape, from snow-covered mountains to misty forests and along deserted roads with glimpses of wild oceans, often shot through foggy windows on a train in motion. Through his lens, Ogawa reveals a world that is both remote and timeless, a world in stillness and motion.

Despite the passage of centuries, the challenges faced by Bashō on his journey are still evident in Ogawa’s photographs. The loneliness and isolation of the road are palpable in the shots of empty trains, lone tracks or roads and desolate hotel interiors. So are the physical challenges of traversing rough terrain and inclement weather documented in his muted photographs.  There is a marked contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the landscape and the harsh realities of life in this remote region. From plain coastal towns to empty streets, Ogawa’s images reveal the toll that economic decline and depopulation have taken on the area. Yet there remains a sense of hope and resilience.

Hardback 2nd edition (1st edition was softcover)

Signed copy.

Supplied with a  7”x 5” signed and stamped archival pigment print (snow image) as shown.  Exclusive to Photobookstore.

• Blue Lotus Editions / Photo Editions 2024
• Hardback, 2nd edition, 100p
• New

Yasuhiro Ogawa’s new photobook Into the Silence captures the rugged yet timeless beauty of Japan’s northern region as he follows in the footsteps of the 17th Century poet Matsuo Bashō.

The story of Matsuo Bashō's journey through the northern provinces of Japan in the 17th century, is recounted in his travelogue "The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” ("Oku no Hosomichi”). In the summer of 1689, Bashō set out on his journey with his traveling companion Sora. They traveled on foot, carrying only minimal provisions and staying in humble lodgings along the way. Bashō was seeking inspiration for his poetry, and he found it in the natural beauty and cultural richness of the places he visited.

Like Bashō before him, Ogawa set out on a journey through the Tōhoku region, unlike Bashō, who traveled on foot with pen in hand, Ogawa preferred to move by train with camera in hand.  His photographs capture the rugged beauty of the landscape, from snow-covered mountains to misty forests and along deserted roads with glimpses of wild oceans, often shot through foggy windows on a train in motion. Through his lens, Ogawa reveals a world that is both remote and timeless, a world in stillness and motion.

Despite the passage of centuries, the challenges faced by Bashō on his journey are still evident in Ogawa’s photographs. The loneliness and isolation of the road are palpable in the shots of empty trains, lone tracks or roads and desolate hotel interiors. So are the physical challenges of traversing rough terrain and inclement weather documented in his muted photographs.  There is a marked contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the landscape and the harsh realities of life in this remote region. From plain coastal towns to empty streets, Ogawa’s images reveal the toll that economic decline and depopulation have taken on the area. Yet there remains a sense of hope and resilience.

Hardback 2nd edition (1st edition was softcover)

Signed copy.

Supplied with a  7”x 5” signed and stamped archival pigment print (birds image) as shown.  Exclusive to Photobookstore.

• Blue Lotus Editions / Photo Editions 2024
• Hardback, 2nd edition, 100p
• New

Yasuhiro Ogawa’s new photobook Into the Silence captures the rugged yet timeless beauty of Japan’s northern region as he follows in the footsteps of the 17th Century poet Matsuo Bashō.

The story of Matsuo Bashō's journey through the northern provinces of Japan in the 17th century, is recounted in his travelogue "The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” ("Oku no Hosomichi”). In the summer of 1689, Bashō set out on his journey with his traveling companion Sora. They traveled on foot, carrying only minimal provisions and staying in humble lodgings along the way. Bashō was seeking inspiration for his poetry, and he found it in the natural beauty and cultural richness of the places he visited.

Like Bashō before him, Ogawa set out on a journey through the Tōhoku region, unlike Bashō, who traveled on foot with pen in hand, Ogawa preferred to move by train with camera in hand.  His photographs capture the rugged beauty of the landscape, from snow-covered mountains to misty forests and along deserted roads with glimpses of wild oceans, often shot through foggy windows on a train in motion. Through his lens, Ogawa reveals a world that is both remote and timeless, a world in stillness and motion.

Despite the passage of centuries, the challenges faced by Bashō on his journey are still evident in Ogawa’s photographs. The loneliness and isolation of the road are palpable in the shots of empty trains, lone tracks or roads and desolate hotel interiors. So are the physical challenges of traversing rough terrain and inclement weather documented in his muted photographs.  There is a marked contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the landscape and the harsh realities of life in this remote region. From plain coastal towns to empty streets, Ogawa’s images reveal the toll that economic decline and depopulation have taken on the area. Yet there remains a sense of hope and resilience.

Hardback 2nd edition (1st edition was softcover)

Signed copy.

Supplied with a  7”x 5” signed and stamped archival pigment print (cat image) as shown.  Exclusive to Photobookstore.

• Blue Lotus Editions / Photo Editions 2024
• Hardback, 2nd edition, 100p
• New

Yasuhiro Ogawa’s new photobook Into the Silence captures the rugged yet timeless beauty of Japan’s northern region as he follows in the footsteps of the 17th Century poet Matsuo Bashō.

The story of Matsuo Bashō's journey through the northern provinces of Japan in the 17th century, is recounted in his travelogue "The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” ("Oku no Hosomichi”). In the summer of 1689, Bashō set out on his journey with his traveling companion Sora. They traveled on foot, carrying only minimal provisions and staying in humble lodgings along the way. Bashō was seeking inspiration for his poetry, and he found it in the natural beauty and cultural richness of the places he visited.

Like Bashō before him, Ogawa set out on a journey through the Tōhoku region, unlike Bashō, who traveled on foot with pen in hand, Ogawa preferred to move by train with camera in hand.  His photographs capture the rugged beauty of the landscape, from snow-covered mountains to misty forests and along deserted roads with glimpses of wild oceans, often shot through foggy windows on a train in motion. Through his lens, Ogawa reveals a world that is both remote and timeless, a world in stillness and motion.

Despite the passage of centuries, the challenges faced by Bashō on his journey are still evident in Ogawa’s photographs. The loneliness and isolation of the road are palpable in the shots of empty trains, lone tracks or roads and desolate hotel interiors. So are the physical challenges of traversing rough terrain and inclement weather documented in his muted photographs.  There is a marked contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the landscape and the harsh realities of life in this remote region. From plain coastal towns to empty streets, Ogawa’s images reveal the toll that economic decline and depopulation have taken on the area. Yet there remains a sense of hope and resilience.

Hardback 2nd edition (1st edition was softcover)

Signed copy.

Supplied with a  7”x 5” signed and stamped archival pigment print (rain image) as shown.  Exclusive to Photobookstore.

• Akio Nagasawa 2024
• Softcover, 1st edition 120p
• New

"Off the main street across from Yokosuka station on the Keihin Kyuko, there is an entertainment district known as “Wakamatsu Market,” that has retained much of the good old Showa flair. As I currently have some other business in the area, I’m walking the streets of Yokosuka quite frequently these days, and realized that visited Wakamatsu Market for the first time since walking around here several years ago to take photos for an earlier issue of Record. Once I slipped into the area’s back streets, there was a smell in the air that reminded me of Shinjuku’s “Golden-gai.” It’s a smell that I like, an environment that my body seems to feel comfortable in, so whenever I pass through it now, I can’t do so without repeatedly pressing my camera’s shutter. On the other hand, however, the Dobuita-dori shopping street that has been synonymous with Yokosuka more than any other place, and where I used to hang out to take pictures around the clock so to speak, has transformed into a place that I now find utterly boring. Not that the neighborhood has changed completely. Even the notorious “sukajan” jacket shops are still there. It is the atmosphere in the streets, the people that I meet here now, the way everything smells, that is so different now. I know that it’s useless to expect everything to be just as I remember it from roaming the streets that I identified with Yokosuka some 60 years ago. Nonetheless, I ask myself where in the world those unique nightly sceneries, those ladies swaggering through the dusky streets with the American soldiers, have all gone. As a matter of course, things change with the times, with age and through the generations, and this place makes no exception. But at the same time, there are those things that do remind me of the Yokosuka that I know so well: the area around the station on the Yokosuka Line, the sea you could see from Shiori station, the ships and cranes on the military base…

So I find myself scouring this neighborhood with a wry smile now. Could it be that Yokosuka is where my photographing career started, and where ends? No way! C’mon Daido, you’ve got work to do!

I like it though, Yokosuka."

– from the afterword by Daido Moriyama

Signed copy.

• Benrido 2023
• Set of 6 prints
• New

Chieko Shiraishi’s 'Shimakage' is literally translated as ‘Island Shadow’ and this work brings together varying images taken from Japan’s surrounding islands and coastal areas. These images are an old retouching technique known as ‘Zokin-gake’ which was previously popular amongst amateur photographers in Japan during the 1920s and 30s. As a result, the images beautifully evoke a faded memory, the landscapes appear and disappear within the image from the photographers own memory, standing as faint silhouettes against the backdrop of an obscured memory.

• Nazraeli 2007
• Softcover, 1st edition, 400p
• New

"In Spring, I am going to go to Hawaii to photograph. I'm so excited, and a little anxious - I've never been there before. The idea of Hawaii has been stuck in my mind for many, many years, just as the idea of a place. I try to imagine what it's like, and I have a certain image of it - a nostalgic place, a place where time has stopped. When I get there, I'll probably find out it's nothing like that. . . ." - Daido Moriyama, 2004

Three years and five trips later, Daido Moriyama created a book of photographs of what he did find in Hawaii.

1st Nazraeli edition of 500 copies, unsigned.

• Reminders Photography / Self 2014
• Hardback, handmade edition
• As new
  

Silent Histories is a testimony to the tragedy of indiscriminate bombing by  US forces during the War in the Pacific, which killed 330,000 Japanese and in-jured 430,000 more. The figures are imposing: some 9.7 million left homeless and more than 2.23 million homes destroyed in more than 200 different cities. In the midst of this enormous destruction, many children were orphaned in an instant or suffered burning or mutilations that marked them for life.

Japan achieved its economic recovery in the wake of wartime devastation. This remarkable growth has been dubbed the “Japanese economic miracle.”  In spite of this unprecedented prosperity, however, children with war injuries have been forced to live harsh lives, unable to cure their wounds. They have lived in the shadows, concealing their pain, hiding their scars, and sparing others the discomfort of seeing them.

Silent Histories was originally published in 2014 in a special limited edition of forty-five handmade copies, this is the final handmade dummy for the 2014 original edition obtained direct from the artist.

Signed by Kazuma Obara.   Completely handmade dummy, with expected imperfections.  All texts in Japanese.

• Akio Nagasawa 2023
• Softcover, 1st edition, 132p
• New"Even now that it’s the end of August, it’s still quite hot outside.

• Nitesha 2023
  
• Softcover, reprinted edition
  
• New
  

Provoke was first published in November 1968 as a dojin-shi, or self-published magazine. It was originally conceived by art critic Koji Taki (1928-2011) and photographer Takuma Nakahira (1938-2015), with poet Takahiko Okada (1939-1997) and photographer Yutaka Takanashi as dojin members. The subtitle for the magazine was “Provocative Materials for Thought”, and each issue was composed of photographs, essays and poems. After releasing the second and third issue with Daido Moriyama as a subsequent member, the group broke up with their last publication First, Abandon the World of Pseudo-Certainty - an overview edition of the three issues. Provoke’s grainy, blurry, and out-of-focus photographs were initially ridiculed as are-bure-boke and stirred a great deal of controversy, yet it had created a strong impact inside and outside of the photography world during that time. However, today, Provoke has become an extremely rare book and very few people have seen the original.

Published as part of The Japanese Box: Facsimile Reprint of Six Rare Photographic Publications of the Provoke Era*, Provoke's facsimile reprint has its photographic images cropped approximately 3 mm from the edges for bookbinding purposes. The reprint also does not include texts by Takahiko Okada due to copyright reasons. Provoke Complete Reprint by NITESHA maintains the original size of the images and includes all original texts, along with the ones by Takahiko Okada. In addition, the volumes will be accompanied by complete English and Chinese translations of the original Japanese texts as a booklet.

2023 printing.

• Sokyusha 2023
  
• Hardback, 1st  edition
• New

A rare time capsule from the 1980s

The story of Daido Moriyama’s photobook “1980s Remnants” begins in 1987, when Moriyama handed Michitaka Ota (of photobook publisher Sokyusha) a box filled with one thousand of his photographs. Some photos from the box were published in “A Journey to Nakaji” later that year and, more than ten years later, in the 1999 photobook “Dreams of Water.” Moriyama insisted that Ota keep the box of photographs, and so they stayed in a corner of Ota’s apartment. A recent conversation brought the box back to mind, and finally, writes Ota, “I was pleased to find that I now can give them some shape.”

Even though the more than 30 years that have passed between the creation of these photographs and their eventual publication becomes part of their charm and magic, these 1980s Moriyama snapshots – of streets and textures and the beauty of urban chaos and, somewhat atypically, plants and floral wildlife – remain fascinating in their own right.

Edition of 300 copies.

• Benrido 2023
• Set of 6 colour collotype prints
• New

• Osiris 2023
  
• Hardback, 1st edition, 120p
• New

“Dawn in Spring” brings back the earliest works of Japanese photographer Asako Narahashi.　Originally shot in 1989, a decisive period not only for the then-unknown artist, Narahashi exhibited the images from her “Dawn in Spring” series four separate times throughout the year. Including previously unshown images, this book represents the first time her series is made available in print.

After taking part in Daido Moriyama’s “FotoSession” workshop in the mid-80s, 1989 was the year her time as a university student would end. With an undecided future ahead of her, Narahashi travelled through Japan – Kumamoto, Miyakejima, Hakata, Yokohama, Hachinohe, Yuzawa, Tokyo… – and inadvertently laid the foundation for her photographic career. Despite the long time between these photographs and her breakthrough in the latter half of the 90s, the black-and-white images in “Dawn of Spring” already reveal the acute sensibilities of this exceptional artist.

“Dawn in Spring. I can’t for the life of me remember how I arrived at this title. Perhaps because it happened to be spring; maybe the words were already resting at the tip of my tongue and just felt right to me. I had no real idea where to travel or what to photograph. I think I simply let the flow, the momentum, my encounters and my desire to escape decide it all … Having come face to face with my contact prints, negatives and 8x10s after all these years, I realized once again that this is where it all began for me.”
― from Asako Narahashi’s artist statement

• RM 2020
• Hardback, 2nd edition
• NEW
  

Born in 1957 in Gamagori, in the Japanese prefecture of Aichi, Yamamoto Masao is a photographer who began his art studies as an oil painter under the supervision of Goro Saito in his hometown. Yamamoto subsequently discovered that photography was the ideal medium for the theme that most interested him: images with the ability to evoke memories.

“Small Things in Silence” offers a perspective on twenty years of the career of one of Japan’s most important photographers. In the words of Yamamoto himself: “I try to capture moments that no one sees and make a photo from them. When I see them in print, a new story begins.”

• IKKI Books 2023
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

• Osiris 2019
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

In his photobook “Holy Onion”, Japanese photographer Motoyuki Daifu concentrates on his mother, photographed while she peels an onion in the family’s kitchen (both mother and kitchen are familiar to us from Daifu’s previous works portraying his family’s life).

In 35 continuous photographs, Daifu captures his mother peeling onions, frame by frame. The photographs are taken only moments apart, as Daifu’s mother cuts into the onion in her hand, scratches her nose, look at the camera, back at the onion, wipe her eyes. The book’s accordion design, with some images separated by white pages, others grouped together, adds to the continuous nature of the sequence. As the images progress, small details in the setting change, and by the end of the book, the plate with onion peels is again empty, the process ready to start all over again. With “Holy Onion”, Daifu pays close attention to the intricacies of mundane tasks and accentuates the beauty within (almost automatic) everyday routines.

The book also features an essay by Chris Fujiwara (in English).

• Akio Nagasawa 2023
• Softcover, 1st edition
• New
  

Yesterday, my daughter drove me and my wife to Kami-Ooka, a town south of Yokohama. We had already been there two weeks earlier, and as I had no business accompanying the ladies on their shopping spree, I spent a little over an hour walking around with my camera, in the area around the station that is crowded with people and tall buildings. Quite naturally, the tour also led me to a place that I always visit, and that I have decided to refer to as my “oasis number three.” On one side of a 50-meter stretch of a narrow alley between the back of a store and the Keihin Kyuko line, there are several juice stands, and sandwiched between them, a number of ashtrays are admirably standing and waiting for smokers like myself. There’s always a bunch of folks, guys and ladies alike, puffing away on their cigarettes as if there was no tomorrow. One of the bars has some concrete steps in front of it that are just right for sitting on, and in that “oasis,” I like to spend some quality time smoking while observing the neighborhood through my pocket camera, and taking the occasional snapshot. There are quite a lot of ladies, and also many blue-collar type guys, and they all come together here for a chat and a puff.

Back home, I found myself alone in the kitchen at night, and while having another cigarette or two, I reviewed the results of my own shooting spree in the alleys of Kami-Ooka. “I guess two or three of them will be alright for Record,” I concluded while thinking about the next issue. I remembered also photographing a long line of people and wondered what they were queueing up for, while lighting another cigarette. Another day in the life of the photographer that I am was casually drawing to an end. And tomorrow, I thought, I’m going to take a stroll around Ofuna.

(Number one and two of my own private oases are places that I carry in my heart, and I won’t tell anyone about them, unless they’re heavy smokers just like me!)

– from the afterword by Daido Moriyama

Signed copy.

• Roshin 2022
• Hardback, 3rd edition
• Fine

Yukichi Watabe’s “Stakeout Diary” is a close-up documentation of two Japanese police detectives investigating a grisly murder in Mito, the capital of Ibaraki Prefecture, in 1958. With the mutilated body of the victim confirmed as a Tokyo resident (and a hand towel of a Tokyo-based hotel was found with the corpse), the investigation led the two detectives—one from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, the other a Mito local—to hold stakeouts in various downtown areas of Tokyo.

Watabe’s photographs of the detectives slowly solving the case and finding the murderer ooze with so atmosphere and character that the series almost seems unreal. In photographs that would not seem out of place in an early Kurosawa film, we see the detectives interview witnesses, ride around the city in busses and trains, think things over in cafes and offices, and converse over cigarettes and food.

While some of Watabe’s photographs were published in a magazine at the time, the series itself was not published until 2011, five years after the photographs were rediscovered by chance in a Tokyo bookshop. The version by Japanese publisher roshin books features prints especially made for this book using negatives borrowed from Yukichi Watabe’s son.

3rd edition in fine condition.

• Match & Co 2016
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

After Dazai and Daido Moriyama: Terayama, the third entry in Match & Company’s literary collaboration series with Daido Moriyama. Photographs by Daido Moriyama are paired with Oda Sakunosuke’s 1946 short-story “At the Horse Races” to pay tribute to one of Japan’s literary treasures.

“For this project, I paired photos of Osaka, taken by Daido Moriyama, with the short story “At the Horse Races”, written by Sakunosuke Oda in 1946, and edited them into this book. […]
I told Moriyama I wanted to create a book that, by pairing them together, would give an entirely new layer of expression to both his photographs of Osaka and the words of Sakunosuke Oda.

My trick to let two artists, each with a strong personality, meet within the space of a book to stimulate each other, has worked.”

• Sokyusha / Blue Lotus Editions 2022
• Softcover, 3rd edition
  
• New
  

"The Dreaming contains 86 black and white images selected from my 27 years’ career in photography and traveling. When I turned 50, I decided to go through all the black & white negatives I had taken so far. Every moment of the journeys may have been vision of dreams – that’s what I thought when I tracked down my archive and such a thought gave me a hint to make this book."

- Yasuhiro Ogawa

Signed copy.  Final copies of the 3rd edition.

A few copies available now without a print. For option with a 6'x4' postcard sized print (signed and stamped to the reverse), please choose from the dropdown.  

• Iikki 2022
  
• Hardback, 2nd edition
  
• New
  

Sasanami is the result of a dialog between the photographer Masao Yamamoto and the musician and composer Akira Uchida initiated by IIKKI between October 2019 and August 2020. 

''Sasanami: Sound becomes waves and creates space, where a story is spun that transcends time and space, just like Noh. Something gentle in that space. Its presence is not definite, it simply exists there. I want to share with you the scene of how the individual and the space are connected.''

Hand-numbered 2nd edition of 1000 copies, with a digital download code for the music.  

• Benrido 2017
• Set of 6 collotype prints
• New

Shoji Ueda (1913-2000) was one of Japan’s most prominent modernist photographers and continues to be one of the nation’s most highly regarded. Working mostly in his home prefecture of Tottori, he frequently incorporated surrealist imagery into his photographs. He often used his wife and three children as subjects, with the local landscape of sand dunes as a backdrop. Six works have been selected from  his series SAND DUNE for inclusion in this collotype portfolio.

Set of 6  collotype prints printed by Benrido, Inc.

Print Size: 25.4 x 20.3cm. Case Size: 20.6 x 25.8 x 0.8cm


In the 1880s, the collotype printing process was introduced to Kyoto and in 1905 Benrido began producing collotypes. Collotype is one of the earliest forms of printing techniques and was invented in France in 1855 by Alphonse Poitevin as a method for photographic fine art printing.  Due to the high level of print and archival quality, it has since been used primarily as a way to reproduce and preserve Japan’s National Treasures and cultural properties. Today Benrido Collotype Atelier remains as one of only a few studios left in the world capable of producing fine colour collotype prints.

• Akio Nagasawa 2022
• Softcover, reprinted edition, 352p
• New

A complete reproduction of the photobook Daido hysteric no.4 published by Harajuku fashion brand 'HYSTERIC GLAMOUR' in 1993

Signed and numbered edition of 900 copies. 365 x 315 mm, 352p.

• T&M 2022
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New
  

'This book “Tokyo Silence” is a collection of B&W photographs capturing the Tokyo street life between 2003 - 2006. Tokyo is thought to be one of the noisiest cities in the world, but through these photographs I want to show the other side of Tokyo - for me, this is a city where strange silence is prevailing in the depth of our life like water. 

During that period I was crazy about traveling in China. In China, everywhere you look there is chaos. Shouts of people on the overcrowded streets, the squawking of car horns echoing in the grey sky, roaring voices from the loudspeakers scattered all over the cities - I really loved those Chinese street noises and I remember walking each day as if struck by lightning.

After getting used to such chaotic noises in China, the silence of Tokyo sounded very unique to me. Every time I came back to Tokyo, I wondered how could the city be so quiet?  No one talks on the trains, no one shouts on the streets. Yes, Tokyo is a city of noise too, but I think the character of noise is inherently different between the two countries. Here in Tokyo, almost all of the noises are from autoplaying music such as background music from shops or video ads on huge screens. What would happen if all the autoplay music is suddenly muted? While walking on the Tokyo streets, sometimes I feel an illusion as if I were in the bottom of an aquarium, where a curious silence surrounds us.

Such a thought pushed me to shoot the Tokyo streets, with a monochrome film-loaded Leica in my hand. I wanted to capture such characteristic silence of Tokyo, and the silence settling down inside us deeply.'

- Yasuhiro Ogawa

Edition of 800 copies.  Signed copy.

• IBASHO & the(M) éditions 2022
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New
  

Right after the accident, I found a blog about peacocks that were left in the evacuation zone, within the 20km limit. I then started imagining  those peacocks, walking around the empty town with their beautiful wings spread.'

This text is from my previous book "And, where did the peacocks go?". My newest book is the new version of the series about what I have experienced and digested from the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident in 2011. That incident pushed me to return to art, which I had stopped for more than 10 years. In this book, I also used the text above but I added this line in the end:

'I still wonder where they went...'

- Miho Kajioka 

We are happy to announce that the artist Miho Kajioka has asked the (M)éditions & IBASHO to publish a book based on her self-published and handmade book  'And, can you still hear the peacocks?'. 

Edition of 500 numbered copies.    Signed copy.

• IBASHO & the (M)éditions 2021
• Softcover, 1st edition
• New

Yoshinori Saito lives in the most northern part of Japan, Hokkaido. Winter there is long and the snow falls intermittently for about four months. The long stretches of snow are tedious, however after the snowstorm when all the snow has settled, there is this endless expanse of white: pure, calm and silent.

 “When I walk on the fluffy virgin snow, in the distance I notice unusual forms. On closer examination they are only some weeds, with their stalks broken and leaves fallen, leaving only a skeletal form. Against the white snow these forms appear black and form sharp markings, as if drawn. This moment also gives me a deep connection to the indigenous Ainu people of Hokkaido. They believe that when their time on earth is over, they return to God’s world, and in due course will reappear. To reflect this sentiment, each work is titled to reflect their world. It is as if the forms are whispering to me, through the tranquility, giving me hope and gently supporting me through to spring.” - Yoshinori Saito

Elegant softcover with Japanese folds. Limited edition of 500 numbered copies.

Text by Yoshinori Saito in Japanese and English