Shomei Tomatsu
Photographs 1951-2000
Only Photography, Berlin, 2012
Hardcover, textured paper with embossing
128 pages, 248 × 325 mm
English, Japanese
Limited and signed edition (500 copies)
ISBN 978-3-9812537-7-1
Ed. by Roland Angst. The Japanese photographer Shomei Tomatsu died December 14th, 2012, at the age of 82. The book collects 100 photographs representing the photographer’s career. Tomatsu’s photographs exist as evidence of his mixed feelings on encountering a post-war Japan, a country radically changed and deeply traumatized by its experiences during and after the Second World War. Speaking of his photographs he once said “the culture shock of defeat is my archetypal image.” Tomatsu made his reputation with a pioneering style of photography that rebelled against the more rigid formalistic style of photography that had existed in Japan previous to the war.