- Paperback: 228 pages
- Publisher: Stone Bridge Press; Bilingual edition (31 May 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 4896841409
- ISBN-13: 978-4896841404
- Product Dimensions: 25.7 x 20.3 x 1.3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,355,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Riding the rails, tired and alive
6 May 2006
Format:Paperback
Pick up a book called "Subway Love" by Nobuyoshi Araki, a photographer/pornographer equally notorious for both his documentation of the Kabuki red light district in the book "Tokyo Lucky Hole" as well as his several arrests for breaking Japanese obscenity laws, and you would rightfully expect something salacious, titillating or even downright dirty. Subway sex, illicit gropings, panty shots captured with ninja-like stealth from oblivious victims, ...the mind boggles at what this master of the underground sex scene might come up with in darkened corners of late night Ginza Line runs.
But this is not that Araki. At the time, 1963-1972, Araki was working for an advertising agency, Dentsu, and still finding his voice as an artist. Riding the subway to and from work, he became obsessed with photographing his fellow passengers, partly to kill time and partly because of the empathy he felt with them, all taking the weary daily ride together.
The photographs in "Subway Love" are raw. Printed directly from the contact sheet, there is a marvelous intimacy created between camera and subject, and then between subject and viewer. Araki refused to use his camera's viewfinder for the portraits, wanting them to come off the same way the eye does when people watching, random and uncentered. In a way, as mentioned in the interview following the photographs, this was his attempt to capture filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu's poetry of everyday life. Many of the shots are from low angles, emulating Ozu's tatami-level camera.
Raw the photographs may be, but the subjects themselves are reverenced and always treated with the respect that daily life deserves. Araki was sure not to publish embarrassing photographs, no nose picking or sleeping office girls with their legs splayed wide. He called this collection "Subway Love" because he loved them all, these warriors of the working day, and wanted to show them as "individuals, not symbols." There are a thousand faces here, some happy, some sad, some tired, some lively. But each and every one of them is a human being, and probably familiar to all of us who at one time or another have made the journey home on the subway.
But this is not that Araki. At the time, 1963-1972, Araki was working for an advertising agency, Dentsu, and still finding his voice as an artist. Riding the subway to and from work, he became obsessed with photographing his fellow passengers, partly to kill time and partly because of the empathy he felt with them, all taking the weary daily ride together.
The photographs in "Subway Love" are raw. Printed directly from the contact sheet, there is a marvelous intimacy created between camera and subject, and then between subject and viewer. Araki refused to use his camera's viewfinder for the portraits, wanting them to come off the same way the eye does when people watching, random and uncentered. In a way, as mentioned in the interview following the photographs, this was his attempt to capture filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu's poetry of everyday life. Many of the shots are from low angles, emulating Ozu's tatami-level camera.
Raw the photographs may be, but the subjects themselves are reverenced and always treated with the respect that daily life deserves. Araki was sure not to publish embarrassing photographs, no nose picking or sleeping office girls with their legs splayed wide. He called this collection "Subway Love" because he loved them all, these warriors of the working day, and wanted to show them as "individuals, not symbols." There are a thousand faces here, some happy, some sad, some tired, some lively. But each and every one of them is a human being, and probably familiar to all of us who at one time or another have made the journey home on the subway.
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