1/5
1/5
Friction/Tokyo Street
Friction/Tokyo Street
Tatsuo Suzuki
August 24, 2020
With narrow perspectives and photographed in severe black and white, the pictures reveal the heartbeat of life on the streets of Tokyo. Produced between 2010 and 2016, Suzuki’s images are now being published for the first time in an ideal book format. The paper chosen gives the necessary depths to the blacks; while the sequence of the page-filling, landscape-format motifs create a dizzying rush of images.
“Through my own eyes and my street shots, I would like to express the tension, the edged frustration, the taut atmosphere and the feelings that beat inherently in the city.” (Tatsuo Suzuki)
In the best of street photography tradition, the Japanese artist’s urban wanderings have resulted in a homage to the megacity. The sequence of the pictures in this, his first book, is made up of spontaneous encounters with passers-by, confrontations between people and animals, weather phenomena, and reflections in shop front windows. It is hardly surprising that the melancholy and forlornness of the individual, lost within the confusion of the streets, emerged as a central theme of the photo book, as the project evolved.
“My aim in shooting the street is to show how the world is beautiful, interesting, wonderful and sometimes cruel.” (Tatsuo Suzuki)
Tatsuo Suzuki is one of eight Japanese photographers personally selected by Gerhard Steidl, within the framework of the Steidl Book Award launched by Steidl Verlag (publishers), and whose books will be printed on the legendary printing equipment of the Göttingen-based publishers. The open call competition, in 2016, attracted 700 submissions. Friction / Tokyo Street is now the third photo book to be published from among the eight winners. Gerhard Steidl was honoured this year with the Sony World Photography Award for his “outstanding contribution to photography” - the first time a publisher, rather than a photographer, has received this recognition. Steidl, true to form, once again put the emphasis on quality in the production of the photo book. The knowledge to be gained from this magnificent publication is only mitigated by the fact that any written text was completely omitted.
164 pages, 150 black and white images. 29.7 x 21 cm. English.
Steidl
Ulrich Rüter“Through my own eyes and my street shots, I would like to express the tension, the edged frustration, the taut atmosphere and the feelings that beat inherently in the city.” (Tatsuo Suzuki)
In the best of street photography tradition, the Japanese artist’s urban wanderings have resulted in a homage to the megacity. The sequence of the pictures in this, his first book, is made up of spontaneous encounters with passers-by, confrontations between people and animals, weather phenomena, and reflections in shop front windows. It is hardly surprising that the melancholy and forlornness of the individual, lost within the confusion of the streets, emerged as a central theme of the photo book, as the project evolved.
“My aim in shooting the street is to show how the world is beautiful, interesting, wonderful and sometimes cruel.” (Tatsuo Suzuki)
Tatsuo Suzuki is one of eight Japanese photographers personally selected by Gerhard Steidl, within the framework of the Steidl Book Award launched by Steidl Verlag (publishers), and whose books will be printed on the legendary printing equipment of the Göttingen-based publishers. The open call competition, in 2016, attracted 700 submissions. Friction / Tokyo Street is now the third photo book to be published from among the eight winners. Gerhard Steidl was honoured this year with the Sony World Photography Award for his “outstanding contribution to photography” - the first time a publisher, rather than a photographer, has received this recognition. Steidl, true to form, once again put the emphasis on quality in the production of the photo book. The knowledge to be gained from this magnificent publication is only mitigated by the fact that any written text was completely omitted.
164 pages, 150 black and white images. 29.7 x 21 cm. English.
Steidl
ALL IMAGES ON THIS PAGE: © Tatsuo Suzuki
Tatsuo Suzuki+-
Tatsuo Suzuki was born in Tokyo in 1965, and began taking pictures in 2008. He has received numerous awards in recent years and, with his Tokyo motifs, was among the finalists of the LensCulture Street Photography Awards in 2015. He lives in Tokyo. More
