Unique portraits of Japanese photography fanatics and their gear from the trendsetting Tokyo Camera Style blog Founded in 2008, John Sypal’s blog, Tokyo Camera Style, has a devoted and passionate international following and has inspired a network of similar blogs worldwide. In street portraits taken on the fly, we see Tokyo’s film-camera enthusiasts posing with their favorite photographic equipment. The images not only catalog the amazing range of cameras used by the most obsessive photography geeks but also offer a glimpse into a street culture where the photograph means everything and the camera takes center stage. Now, 300 of Sypal’s colorful photographs of weird and wonderful cameras and their creative owners have been gathered together in a one-of-a-kind book. Often taken from above, with the camera owners’ faces out of view, the images show telling details that might otherwise have been missed: the clothes, the jewelry, hands and feet, shoes and socks, customized camera straps, and other photography-related paraphernalia. Beyond the wonderful selection of rare, customized, and vintage analog camera makes, models, and lenses are portraits of the individual personalities who make up the avid street photography scene in Japan.

Photographer Liam Wong’s debut monograph, a cyberpunk-inspired exploration of nocturnal Tokyo. Featuring evocative and stunning color photographs of contemporary Tokyo, this book brings together the images of an exciting new photographic talent, Liam Wong. Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, Wong studied computer arts in college and, by the time he was twenty-five, was living in Canada and working as a director at one of the world’s leading video game companies. His job took him to Tokyo for the first time, where he discovered the ethereality of floating worlds and the lurid allure of Tokyo’s nocturnal scenes. “I got lost in the beauty of Tokyo at night,” he explains. A testament to the deep art of color composition, this publication brings together a refined body of images that are evocative, timeless, and completely transporting. This volume also features Wong’s creative and technical processes, including identifying the right scene, capturing the essence of a moment, and methods to enhance color values—insights that are invaluable to admirers and photography students alike.

Ozu's Tokyo Story is generally regarded as one of the finest films ever made. Universal in its appeal, it is also considered to be 'particularly Japanese'. Exploring its universality and cultural specificity, this collection of specially commissioned essays demonstrates the multiple planes on which the film may be appreciated. The introduction outlines Ozu's career as both a contract director of a major studio and as a singular figure in Japanese film history, and also analyses the director's cinematic style, particularly his narrative strategies and spatial compositions. Other essays situate Ozu's cinema in its relationship to Hollywood film-making: his relationship to aspects of Japanese tradition, situating the film within artistic modes, religious systems and beliefs, and socio-cultural and familial formations. Also included is an analysis of how Ozu has been misunderstood in Western criticism.

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Portraits documenting the Kawaii Lolita street fashion scene.

Magnum photographer Jacob Aue Sobol moved to Tokyo in Spring 2006. He began photographing in the streets and public areas, drawn to the tightly confined reality of the city. His search was for the individual human being in an environment simultaneously attractive and repellant. He hung out with the rent boys in Kabukicho, the red light district. He visited the homeless sleeping in the streets and the parks. Most of all, he sought to understand Japanese youth, the generation which lacks any connection to traditional Japanese culture and values.