Ein Shinzo: Photographic Record - Testimonies from Rural Villages

Shinzō Hanabusa's photo book "Photographic Record: Testimonies from the Village" is a documentary photo collection that sharply captured Japanese rural areas during the period of rapid economic growth. Starting in 1964, Hanabusa conducted interviews in villages across the country, vividly depicting the changing lives of farmers as agriculture modernized and the contradictions and distortions that arose in its wake.

This book doesn't just contain rural landscapes. The central themes are the agricultural policies and issues that Japanese society faced around 1970, such as changes in working environments due to mechanization, pesticide spraying, pollution problems, rice paddy reduction policies, depopulation, the influx of imported agricultural products, and the growing scale of agricultural cooperatives. The images of farmers engaged in fieldwork reveal exhaustion and tension that cannot be explained solely by the benefits of modernization.

Hanabusa did not sentimentally portray the desolation of rural areas. Instead, by immersing himself in the field, he calmly and persistently observed the reality of farmers amidst change. This work is underpinned by a strong awareness of what post-war Japanese economic growth left behind.

Published by Asahi Shimbun Company in 1971. Winner of the Japan Congress of Journalists Encouragement Award. It is an extremely important record of the Japanese rural landscape, which is now disappearing.

[Title] Photographic Record: Testimonies from the VillageTestimony by the Farmers
[Publisher] Asahi Shimbun Company
[Publication Date] July 20, 1971
[Page Count] 248 pages
[Size] Approx. 182*259*15mm / 590g
[Format] Softcover
[Language] Japanese
[Title Reading] 
[Author/Editor] Shinzo Hanabusa/Authored, Tatsuo Midoroji/Text
[Printing] Kyodo Printing
[ISBN] 0036253895-0042
[Condition] Used 【4】Fair to Below Average (Cover: Shrinkage/minor tearing, Book itself: Tanning, Spine corners damaged, Minor stains on all three edges)
[Accessories] Cover, Obi
[Included in] The Japanese Photobook 1912–1990
[Related Exhibition] 1969 "Rural Report"

Shinzo Hanabusa

Born in Chiba Prefecture in 1936.Photographer.
Graduated from Tokyo College of Photography. Known as a documentary photographer who continuously recorded Japanese society after its rapid economic growth, through the lens of rural issues and changes in local communities.

In 1965, he received the Japan Photo Critics Association Newcomer's Award for his solo exhibition "The Blind - Their Closed Society" and for "Rural Electronic Industry," which was published in "Asahi Camera." In 1971, he received the Japan Congress of Journalists Encouragement Award for his photo book "Testimonies from the Village." In 1982, he received the 7th Ina Nobuo Award for "Shiro Kuwahara and Shinzo Hanabusa: A Documentary Duo Exhibition," and in 1983, he received the BolognaRagazzi Award for his photo picture book "Mizu (Water)."

Since 1992, he has continuously photographed the ancient water towns of Shanghai and the Jiangnan region of China, documenting the rapidly changing cityscape and the memories of people's lives under the "Reform and Opening-up" policy.

Major photo books include "Testimonies from the Village" (1971), "What Happened to Japanese Villages" (1989), "The Era of Devotion" (1990), "Shanghai Fang-sheng Bridge Story" (2001), and "Under the Shanghai Sky" (2006). His works are held in collections such as the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Kawasaki City Museum, and Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts.
Honorary member of the Japan Professional Photographers Society.

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