Distance was serialized in Asahi Camera Magazine for a year in 1994. I was 34 years old.
It was only a three-page serial, but I was able to get paid for my photos by having them published in a photography magazine each month. Up until then, I had only shown my photos in a gallery I set up myself, but I hadn’t made any money from it, so I felt that this job would allow me to become a real photographer, and I was enthusiastic about taking photos every month, traveling all over Japan.
In my comment for the new serialization, I cheekily wrote, “I only have a Canon F1 camera and a single 35mm lens. This is enough for taking straight-on photos. I want to photograph the outskirts of town, factories, places that smell of machine oil – landscapes that are in my memory but are fading in reality.” But in reality, this was the only equipment I used, and I enjoyed the feeling of forcibly capturing the scenery. I still preferred high-contrast prints like those of Daido Moriyama, and my page was the only one in the magazine that was completely black.
After the serialization ended, I asked several publishers to release a photo book, but nothing worked out, so I self-published it in April 1996. I looked for a printing company and wanted as many people as possible to see the book I had edited myself, but a few years later the company I had entrusted with distribution went bankrupt, and many of the copies I had left in storage were never returned.
As this was a photo book I was very attached to, I changed the editing and produced a small number of copies on demand in 2012, and by chance published it in Argentina in 2021, but the town was so far away that it was difficult to get it to Japan.
This time, I’ve added new shots and performed an experimental edit. I hope you enjoy “DISTANCE” which also incorporates the element of time that has passed.
