Dear friends,
My new book Slopes has arrived from the printer! It is a very limited edition and public sale will begin in about a week. However, for subscribers to my newsletter, it is available beginning today.
I wrote in a previous newsletter that this year all of my photography would be centered on my local neighborhood. Slopes is the first result of that effort.
I live in a hilly neighborhood—a rare thing in Tokyo. Every day, I walk down one or another of several slopes to go shopping, to photograph, or to catch the train. Every day I walk back up. The most significant of these slopes are marked with signposts, which also provide some history of the slope. Those signposts are the subject of these photos—but of course this book is also about the life of the neighborhood around them.
I have tried to be a neutral observer, to not project my own ideas or feelings onto this work. Of course, that goal is impossible. Still, these photos provide an inventory of one facet of my neighborhood. And together, they are a piece of a much larger picture—a picture that I am still building.
Slopes is a slim, A5-size book. It is not big, nor was it meant to be. Because there are 17 of these signposts in my neighborhood, this book contains 17 photos, spread across 28 pages, along with a brief essay.
Self-publication is not easy, but I am happy to say that this book reflects my vision without compromise. After I sketched out initial designs and worked through several maquettes, the details were refined by my co-designer, Chihiro Kobayashi. She also introduced me to the printers of Sun M Color, who have produced award winning books for such photographers as Daisuke Yokota and Risaku Suzuki, among others. Together we selected from papers made here in Japan and compared printing methods. I am excited to share the final result.
Slopes is limited to 100 signed and numbered copies. Each costs 25 USD, including shipping almost anywhere in the world. If purchased here in Japan, it is 2500 JPY, including domestic shipping. I will randomly choose two people from my mailing list who order the book to receive for free a 20-centimeter archival print of one of my favorite photos in book.
To order, send me an email with your mailing address. I will reply with a PayPal invoice, which can be paid by credit card in most countries.
I do hope you will consider purchasing a copy.
In related news! My collective, VoidTokyo, is currently holding an exhibition at Hiko Hiko Gallery in Ginza, Tokyo. It is a truly beautiful gallery and I feel honored to be showing my work there.
The exhibition will run from July 18 through July 30. The address and hours are here. You will find one of the prints from Slopes hanging on the wall, along with several of my past works.
At the exhibition, there will also be copies of VoidTokyo Vol.8, which contains photos from the series I discussed last month, We Are, We Are. (Or, if you pre-ordered a copy, it is already on its way to you.)
It has been an exciting summer! If you have any questions about Slopes or about the exhibition at Hiko Hiko Gallery, or if you just want to say say hello, please write. I enjoy hearing from everyone.
And if you know of someone who might be interested in either the book or the exhibition, would you please share this newsletter with them? It would mean a lot to me.
I’ll be back with another newsletter in August.
Joel