Okinawa

Shomei Tomatsu
Okinawa

Photographs: Shomei Tomatsu

Text: Shomei Tomatsu

Publisher: Shaken

Year: 1969

Comments: Softcover, 210 x 260 mm. Black & white photographs. Text in japanese. Gravure printing. First edition, 1969. Included in Auer Collection, p.503. Copy a bit faded due to time but in pretty good condition. Reproductions very well preserved. Scarce collectible copy.

Tomatsu's most political book, with the famous, searing image of a missile launching sandwiched between graphic slogans demanding the end to American occupation of the island. Like most of Tomatsu's books, Okinawa is difficult to categorize. It borrows stylistically from the Provoke school while never losing its focus as a social documentary, yet it would be overly simplistic to lump it in with other Japanese protest books, even those about Okinawa.