Japanese Photography

Japanese photography developed a distinctive critical and formal language across the postwar decades, from the radical montage of the Provoke era (1968–69) through the serial, urban, and often confrontational work of the late 1970s and 1980s. Associated with figures including Daido Moriyama, Shōmei Tomatsu, Nobuyoshi Araki, and Keizō Kitajima, this tradition produced a body of photobooks, magazines, and ephemeral publications that treated print as an active medium rather than a neutral container. The photobook — often self-published, cheaply produced, and designed for immediate circulation — became a primary site of photographic practice.

  • `Keizō Kitajima — 東京 No. 2 (Tokyo No. 2), Photo Express Tokyo, February 1979. Front cover. High-contrast black and white photograph of two figures in close proximity, faces partially obscured, one in a leather jacket, set against a dark ground with diagonal structural elements. Title in teal kanji and Latin type upper centre: 東京 No 2. Date and price: 1979. FEBRUARY · 200 YEN. Green circular stamps along foot reading: 写 真 特 急 便 〒 北 島 敬 三 (Photo Express Mail, Kitajima Keizō).` `Keizō Kitajima — Photo Express Tokyo No. 2, February 1979 — interior plate. High-contrast black and white photograph of a woman seated at low angle, wearing a floral-patterned qipao dress, platform shoes, and a wide-brimmed hat. Face tilted upward, smiling, body angled toward camera. Flash-bleached highlights against deep black ground. Tokyo nightlife, 1979.`

    Keizō Kitajima — Photo Express Tokyo No. 2, February 1979

    Keizō Kitajima — Photo Express Tokyo No. 2, February 1979