shashasha

Featuring his two series “gazetteer” and “CC”, Taiji Matsue’s photobook presents photographs of deserts, forests, mountains and plains as well as large cities from around the world, shot in a peculiar, highly flat style that eliminates shadows, skies, horizons to produce a rich tapestry of features and details.

“‘Excess of photography’ is not a reference to the world's inundation with an overabundance of photographs. It means that a human being cannot look at a photograph and see it all at once in its entirety. This is because when we see a photograph, the act of looking inevitably casts a shadow on it, inevitably generating an invisible blind spot. In capturing sweeping views of cities and nature from high above, Taiji Matsue's photographs remind us of the impossibility of a true panoramic view. By doing so, they open up photography to the wealth of details as yet unseen.”
― from Minoru Shimizu’s essay “Excess of Photography”