Faces of Japan

Fülszöveg

FACES OF JAPAN
Bob Davis
Japan is richer in contrast than beauty, despite the image that stereotypes have projected for so long— snow-capped Mt. Fuji, fluttering cherry blossoms, dough-faced geisha and elegant teahouses. We should keep this contrast in sight because it is the energy behind life and growth in Japan. Bob Davis's photographs may not fit our travel-poster-inspired assumptions about Japan, but they are very important in showing us faces more spontaneous than any we have seen before and scenes brimming with both human interest and comment.
A kimonoed matron, her face partially covered with a gauze mask because she has a cold, faces a pinball machine with rapt, even greedy, attention. A truck driver polishes his rig with paternal pride. A sumo wrestler, wearing only his traditional loincloth, walks his dog on a narrow back street. Passengers on a crowded train burrow for places to read under mountains of skis and luggage. A family enjoys the view of a lagoon and... Tovább

Fülszöveg

FACES OF JAPAN
Bob Davis
Japan is richer in contrast than beauty, despite the image that stereotypes have projected for so long— snow-capped Mt. Fuji, fluttering cherry blossoms, dough-faced geisha and elegant teahouses. We should keep this contrast in sight because it is the energy behind life and growth in Japan. Bob Davis's photographs may not fit our travel-poster-inspired assumptions about Japan, but they are very important in showing us faces more spontaneous than any we have seen before and scenes brimming with both human interest and comment.
A kimonoed matron, her face partially covered with a gauze mask because she has a cold, faces a pinball machine with rapt, even greedy, attention. A truck driver polishes his rig with paternal pride. A sumo wrestler, wearing only his traditional loincloth, walks his dog on a narrow back street. Passengers on a crowded train burrow for places to read under mountains of skis and luggage. A family enjoys the view of a lagoon and simple shrine building; behind them an overturned trash can disgorges its contents. A woman works in a small field as her forebears did; just beyond are huge steel storage tanks, the property of a large chemical company.
The eighty-eight black-and-white photographs in Faces of Japan catch the feeling of Japanese life in the 1970s with such accuracy and discernment that anyone who has been in Japan in the last few years must agree, "Yes, that's how it really is." This portfolio of Bob Davis's work on Japan, introduced by journalist Murray Sayle, a fellow Australian, goes far beyond the posed and sweetened image of Japan, to something nearer the truth. Vissza