I like little photo books. Books you can look into easily, without straining your wrists, elbows, and/or shoulders. Books you are actually tempted to open and not just leave on your shelf, gathering dust. Books that allow (and push) photographers, editors, and curators to look at bodies of works in new ways.
Japanese photographers have nailed this printed medium. Daido Moriyama’s back catalogue is filled with small little hand-held books, long out-of-print. These are beautiful volumes that match perfectly their (often single) subjects. His images have always been filled with a kind of nervous energy, as if he were quickly peering into an illicit, dangerous world of dark, rainy streets, empty subway cars, porno shops, grimy hotels rooms, and pawn shop knife drawers, to name a few of his favorite subjects. The photos are grainy, off-kilter, out of focus, rough, intimate, wild, and they are thrilling for it. Printed full bleed, they grab you by the collar, and as if fueled by the high speed of his film, propel you through Moriyama’s street vision.
Japanese publisher Kodansha has been reissuing these classics over the last couple of years. I’ve picked up a few of these editions in the past few months, including 71 New York, a collection of photographs Moriyama took with a half-frame camera during a visit to New York in 1971, and Karyudo (A Hunter), his second photo book and the original edit of some of his most famous Tokyo street photography. These are classics, and their re-release should be taken as an opportunity by other publishers to rethink how books are being done. I love Mikhael Subotkzky’s work, and I can certainly appreciate the dedication and effort that goes into a book like Retina Shift, but such a tome is unwieldy and, ultimately, unapproachable. Photo books are meant to be looked at, and if you can’t bring yourself to look, well, then…
Photos of 71 New York (top two) and Karyuodo (A Hunter) (bottom) courtesy Japan Exposures
