New Japanese Photography

Edit by John Szarkowshi and Shoji Yamagishi

Within the past twenty-five years the character of Japanpese photography has changed radically, and its former dependence on the pattern and attitudes of the traditional Japanese media has been replaced by a sometimes harshly realistic objectivity. At the root of the change was a desire to find ways in which photography could deal directly with contemporary experience, rather than with the basically formalistic issues of picture structure. The work produced under this impetus has influenced photographic thinking throughout the world.

This book surveys the major innovative figures in Japanese photography of recent years and reports on the most significant work being done by younger photographers in Japan today. Alive with visual excitement, the volume presents the distinctive work of fifteen photographers. A selection of pictures from Ken Domon's classic interpretation of the eighth-century temple Muro-ji serves as a prelude to more recent work. The central figure of the book is Shomei Tomatsu, whose photographs of the westernization of Japan transform the materials of photojournalism into an intensely personal and intuitive statement. Among the younger photographers represented is Daidoh Moriyama, whose work is a highly idiosyncratic and often frightening visual diary, recording the photographer's journey through a time of apocalyptic change.

The volume is edited by two internationally known authorities on photography. John Szarkowski, author of Looking at Photographs and numerous other books in the field, is Director of Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The critics Shoji Yamagishi, of the magazine Camera Mainichi, Tokyo is developing editor of a recently series of monographs on leading Japanese photographers.

On the cover : Shomei Tomatsu, Aftermath of a Typhoon, Nagoya. 1959.