shashasha

Issei Suda’s “The Sketch of Kanto Area” is a series originally published in six issues of Asahi Camera magazine in 1983. This photobook includes every photograph from the series in order of appearance, separated into six chapters according to the six magazine issues in which they originally appeared. Because the photographs – snapshots and portraits taken in various Japanese towns in Suda’s signature style, imbuing the everyday with a sense of the mysterious, surreal or sublime – were not published or shown since their initial magazine publication, the series has remained largely unknown.

“There are things I have lost amidst the growing abundance, and things I have forgotten while living in the city. Instead of stars that I used to see in the sky, the night is filled with stars of neon that glitter suspiciously like beckoning light traps. From down in the valleys between buildings, the looming peaks of black concrete form sceneries that almost feel sublime to me.
Here I am, drinking High Sour and spluttering arguments in the middle of a downtown street, trying to forget the pain when my heart feels empty, and dreaming of Madonna, as I take my “Tokyo chika chika syndrome” with just a little sigh. And I’m going to laugh at things again tomorrow. That’s not because I feel lonely or amused though, but I will only hear myself muttering, “What a great city Tokyo is!”
Nonetheless, there is always a crazy idea or two flying around, and they will surely come to my mind and lift me up, eventually…”
― Issei Suda’s statement in Asahi Camera (May 1983 issue)

All texts (statements by publisher Akio Nagasawa and the above text by Issei Suda, chapter titles, and location data) included in Japanese and in English translation.