Akiyama Ryoji, Narakawa-mura

Japanese photographer Ryoji Akiyama's photobook "Narakawa-mura" is a record taken over approximately two years in a small village in Kiso-gun, Nagano Prefecture. It captures the people and travelers living in Narakawa Village, which flourished as a post town on the Nakasendo road and was known for Kiso lacquerware, with the perspective of a traveler and a quiet gaze.

In this book, children are particularly strikingly portrayed. Scenes from milestones such as sports festivals, school trips, and graduation ceremonies suggest that the village's rhythm revolved around children. The gentle imagery, which avoids strong contrasts, does not emphasize the artist's expression but rather captures the atmosphere of the land itself.

Without relying on excessive staging or dramatic moments, this book calmly depicts human activities within the flow of daily life, serving as a document that quietly preserves the memory of a village and representing another rich lineage of Japanese photography.

[Title] Narakawa-mura
[Publisher] Asahi Shimbun Publications
[Publication Date] January 15, 1991 (First Edition)
[Number of Pages] Unpaginated (118 pages)
[Size] Approximately 213*259*13mm
[Format] Softcover
[Language] Japanese
[Title Reading] Narakawamura
[Author/Editor] Ryoji Akiyama/Author
[Printing] Toppan Printing/Printing, Aoki Bookbinding/Binding
[ISBN] 4022562528
[Condition] Used 【6】Good to Fair (Slight rubbing on obi and cover, light age-related tanning on edges)
[Accessories] Obi
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Ryoji Akiyama (Akiyama Ryoji) 1942-

Born in Tokyo in 1942.
Son of photographer Seiji Akiyama. After graduating from Waseda University's Faculty of Letters, he worked at the Tokyo Bureau of the Associated Press and the photography department of the Asahi Shimbun before becoming a freelance photographer in 1967.

While working as a photojournalist covering social issues such as famine in India and depopulation on remote islands, he also traveled through America, China, and various parts of Japan, creating works that captured people's lives and landscapes with his unique sense of distance. In 1974, he exhibited alongside Daido Moriyama and Masahisa Fukase in the "New Japanese Photography" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, gaining international recognition.

He established his unique world with a style that calmly observes subjects from a "traveler's perspective," using a 6x6 twin-lens reflex camera. His major photobooks include "Tsugaru, Ryōji Sensei Gyōjōki" (1978), "New York Tsushin" (1980), "Narakawa-mura" (1991), and "Nara" (2006).

His works are held in collections at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, and the Aomori Museum of Art.
In recent years, the reprinting and re-editing of his "Nihao Xiaopengyou" series has garnered attention both domestically and internationally, leading to a re-evaluation of his work.

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