A few months back, a friend of mind showed me "IN OSAKA" by Japanese photographer, Ko-ji Yamasaki. After flipping through a few pages of the book, I knew I was hooked by the strong, grainy, black and white photos of daily life in Kansai, Japan. I was so moved, that I contacted him via his website to purchase his book. I was glad to receive his reply, and eventually his book. In fact, he was kind enough to send me two copies. I was so excited, that I made this unboxing video.

Through our back and forth communications, I began to understand the motivation behind his bleak and striking images; however, rather than try to review his book from MY point of view, I thought it would be better to let Yamasaki explain a little about his ideas.

Q1: Your book is undoubtedly emotional, and you mention that in the introductory conversation that you wanted to convey sad feelings. When the book was finally published, did you feel a sense of emotional relief? Not just simple happiness, but something deeper for you.

A1: Upload photographs on the web; organize them as a photographic collection and display it. This is an action to show and tell something with pictures, but this doesn’t enable you to remove the darkness that has been at the very bottom of one's heart. I project on pictures emotions which I can’t totally express with words, and I have been recording the emotions by projecting them on photos, which enable the emotions to be visible.

webに写真をアップする、写真集にまとめる、展示をする、これらは写真で見せる、写真で何かを伝えるための行為ですが、それによって自己の根底に潜み続ける暗い闇が救われることはありません。
私は文字では到底表せないような感情を被写体に借りて投影し、写真という目に見える形に変えて記録し続けています。

Q2: Almost all of the images in the book are simple subjects of daily life, but the feelings they convey are very powerful and magnetic. It’s difficult for me NOT to look at your pictures so intensely. I’m made to look at them; inspect them, read them; communicate with them even though the image is that of room with a bed / futon (page 22). Why do you think rough, hard images of simple life are so alluring?

A2: The scenery we see every day looks calm and peaceful (at least in Japan). However, it doesn’t match with the fragile emotions that exist in your heart. I want to express them with pictures as much as I can. Coarse particles and colorless monochrome, unstable forms which are relative to emotions, films which are live media, those are natural options to me.

実際に生活している日常の風景は穏やかで平和そうに見えます（少なくとも日本では）。
でも、それらは自分の心の中にある壊れそうな感情とは一致しません。
それらを可能な限り忠実に再現したいのです。
粗い粒子と色のないモノクローム、感情に比例した不安定な構図、フイルムという生の媒体、
それらは私にとっては自然な選択なのです。

Q3: Unlike some photographers like Osamu Kanemura who shoot high-contrast, gloomy, chaotic cityscapes, his pictures have almost no humans in them. Similarly, yours are harsh, brutal, severe, which includes people, but their face is either hidden or blurred. What is your motivation to show people, but “not to show” them?

A3: There are two cases. One of them is when a camera recognizes a person as a human, and the other case is when it recognizes a person as a part of the scenery. In the latter case, the person shows up in the photo as a subject with the scenery which is changing and moving in front of me, not as a human.

人物として認識する場合と、風景の一部として同化される場合があります。
後者の場合、それはもう人ではなく、目の前を過ぎ去る風景と共に流れ動いて写ります。

Q4: Simple question: have you ever thought about shooting a series in color?

A4: I sometimes take color pictures. I took color pictures with nice films the other day (all of them were bad though). But, I can’t express my feelings with color pictures because my gray stormy feelings often come out. So I take color pictures for a change of pace. Although color pictures have reality as a visual, the reality that is very close to my true feelings is the world of monochrome. In other words, what is very important to me is that my pictures depict my feelings.

カラーで撮ることもあります。つい先日もカラーで9本撮りました（全滅でしたが）。
ただ、自分の心の中に灰色の荒れた心理が常に顔を出してくるので、カラーでは心情をうまくアウトプットできません。ですので、気分転換程度には使うという感じです。
カラー写真は視覚として現実的なリアリティを持ちますが、私の本当の心情により近いリアルはモノクロームの世界です。つまり、私の写真は「私の心情描写であること」が何よりも優先されます。

Q5: Lastly, on the contact sheets included in the book, you list your technique for processing and printing, and we can see the effects on the images. Do you always make images in this manner? Do you plan to try different styles in the future?

A5: The data that I use when I print photographs from the negatives can be decided by the films I use. I make contact sheets when there are a lot of negatives which are not printed yet. And I like watching the contact sheets. You can say that one film is one photograph. And it is true perfection of one's own LOG.

I am not thinking about a new style. For example, I am not thinking that I will start using a digital camera. Including work like printing photographs from negatives using chemicals or printing photographs in a darkroom, those are very important “photograph actions” to me.

ネガ現像を行う時のデータは、使うフイルムによって大体決めています。
プリント作業時は、未プリントのネガが多くあるに時はコンタクトシートを作ります。
そして私はコンタクトシートを眺めるのが好きです。
フイルム１本が１枚の写真と言えるでしょう。そしてそれが本当の完全なる自分の日記（LOG）だからです。

新しいスタイルについては何も考えていません。
例えば、デジタルカメラに移行するとかも無いです。
薬品でネガを現像したり、暗室でプリントしたりするアナログな作業も含めて、私にとっては大好きな「写真行為」です。

End.

You can find "IN OSAKA" on Amazon here.

Thank you very much, Ko-ji Yamasaki for taking the time to share your thoughts.

I'm sure many of his fans are looking forward to the release of a future publication.