Ichi no oto (Sounds of Selling) (WITH OBI)

Hiroshi Hamaya
Ichi no oto (Sounds of Selling) (WITH OBI)

Photographs: Hiroshi Hamaya

Publisher: Kawade Shobo Shinsha

127 pages

Year: 2009

Price: 36 €

Comments: Hardcover, 27,5 x 18,5 cm, b&w photographs. First edition with obi. In very good condition.

Together with Kimura Ihei and Domon Ken, Hamaya is one of the grand masters of Japanese photography. This is an important book of his work during the late 1930s, published on the 10th anniversary of his death. Hamaya met the banker and folklore scholar (a rare combination!) Shibusawa Keizo (1896-1963) in 1939 who inspired him to concentrate his efforts on aspects of folklore studies, in particular customs relating to pre-industrial methods of production and traditional ways of selling such merchandise. Hamaya went to the temple fairs of Asakusa, Setagaya, and Hachimangu to observe traders in metal tools, ropes, baskets and other hand-made objects. There is also a section on itinerant tradesmen and street vendors. Hamaya thus became part of the folklore studies movement that would lead him to Yanagita Kunio, Ichikawa Shinji, and ultimately to 'Snow Country'.