Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers

Buoyed by a robust tradition of artist monographs and photo magazines, Japanese photographers have produced a body of written work that delves deep into the aesthetic, technical and historical aspects of photography, while at the same time recounting episodes from the photographers' personal lives. The 30 pieces collected here range in tone from polemical and philosophical to slyly humorous, and the authors' personal revelations are often disarmingly intimate. There is plenty here to hold the reader's attention: Eikoh Hosoe's behind-the-scenes description of his notorious images of the writer Yukio Mishima; Seiichi Furuya's harrowing account of his wife's suicide; Nobuyoshi Araki's comical notes on an erotically charged photo session; Miyako Ishiuchi's feminist-inflected musings on the interactive nature of looking. The volume could have been made more attractive with a larger number of reproduced images, as the dearth of photographs can be frustrating at times; many of these essays were written as companion pieces to photographic work. The texts are ably introduced by monolithic photography curator Anne Wilkes Tucker, whose History of Japanese Photography is regarded as the best single-volume overview of the subject. Offering reliable insight into little-known aspects of a vibrant photographic culture, this collection will be more deeply enjoyed by those already familiar with Japanese photography.