I, Tokyo

Jacob aue Sobol
I, Tokyo
Photographs: Jacob aue Sobol
Publisher: Dewi Lewis
112 pages
Pictures: 70
Year: 2008
Price: 180 €
Comments: Hardcover. Obi as issued. 330 x 240 mm. Black & White photographs. Text in English . Winner of the Leica European publishers award 2008. In great condition. Collectible.
I came to Tokyo for the first time in the spring of 2006. My girlfriend Sara had
got a job there, and so I decided to move with her to explore the city in which
she had grown up. It was a society I had never experienced before, one which
I had little knowledge of and to which I had no real sense of relationship.
Initially I felt invisible. Each day I would walk the streets without anyone making
eye-contact with me. Everyone seemed to be heading somewhere it was as
if they had no need of communication. Most mornings I would take the Chuo-
line from Nakano to Shinjuku, and even though the train would be packed with
salary-men and school girls in uniform, I rarely heard a word being spoken.
Though Tokyo and its people seemed unreachable, I felt drawn to the tight
and confined reality of the metropolis. My feeling of isolation and loneliness
was overwhelming it was something I had to find a way to change. And so I
began taking my pocket camera out with me on the streets and in the parks.
Rather than focusing on the impressively tall buildings and the eternal swarm
of people, I began searching for the narrow paths and the individual human
presence in a city that felt both attractive and repulsive at the same time. I
wanted to meet the people, to get involved in the city, to make Tokyo mine.
The pictures in this exhibition are a recording of what I saw and the people I met
during the ensuing 18 months.
In my attempt to try to understand Tokyo and its people, I found myself returning
to the same streets and parks again and again. There were certain areas in
Shinjuku and Yoyogi-park that always captured my interest, and inevitably they
became the places that I felt closest to. I think that it was meeting the people
there, on a one to one basis, that helped to give me a better impression of
what it means to be a part of Tokyo today.
Some of those I photographed became my friends, others I shared only a short
moment with. The pictures are something that grew from these meetings
pictures I took out of curiosity, and to help me remember how I felt that day,
my experience of the city. When I photographed I tried to work by instinct as
much as possible so as to connect and involve myself with the places I visited
and the people I met. Taking snapshots supports the feeling of something
unpredictable and playful. I believe it is when pictures are unconsidered and
irrational that they come to life; that they evolve from showing to being.







more books by Jacob aue Sobol
more books tagged »out of print « | >> see all
-
Sugar Paper Theories (ONLY 25 COPIES - SPECIAL EDITION) Last c...
by Jack Latham
Euro 400 -
Unreal city (ONLY 30 COPIES - SIGNED)
by Hannah Darabi
sold -
Rasen Kaigan
by Lieko Shiga
sold -
Privacy (Sealed copy)
by Dayanita Singh
sold -
Eden is a magic world (Signed)
by Miguel Calderón
sold -
Sol & Luna
by Viviane Sassen
sold
more books tagged »magnum« | >> see all
-
THE COAST (SIGNED)
by Sohrab Hura
sold -
Cidade de Pedra (SIGNED)
by Antoine d'Agata
sold -
From Here to There: Alec Soth's America (Signed)
by Alec Soth
sold -
Algerien
by Dirk Alvermann
sold -
Prince Street Girls
by Susan Meiselas
sold -
Discordia (Signed)
by Moises Saman
sold