Shinshoku Fukei / Impressive Landscape

Yasushi Sugino
Shinshoku Fukei / Impressive Landscape

Photographs: Yasushi Sugino

Text: Ken Domon & Yasushi Sugino

Publisher: Self published

96 pages

Pictures: 49

Year: 1970

Comments: Purple linen hardcover under dust jacket, 295 x 210 mm. First edition, 1970. This rare copy is in great condition compare to the one I've seen before, binding is fine as well as the reproductions. A very fresh copy with just a touch of wear and scratch on the corner of the jacket.

Yasushi Sugino lived in Ikoma, near Kyoto, and was a member of the Osaka Kogei Kurabu club, led for a while by photographer Takeji Iwamiya who lived in the west part of Japan and was very interested in traditional handcraft, architecture and buddhism. Yasushi Sugino and Takeji Iwamiya both had a classic photographic aesthetic. Later, Yasushi Sugino will take a more modern aesthetic path, following the avant-garde of the 1930's.

Yasushi Sugino photographed empty streets, damaged walls. Human faces are only seen through billboards stick on posts. Sugino observed surfaces – like curtains – eggs in a basket or in the pavement. We barely see the sky in his photographs, Sugino’s camera strictly turned to the bottom most of the time.