Customer Reviews

Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of the Nation

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As I stumbled across the Shomei Tomatsu exhibit last August I had no idea how much his work would impact me. Everytime I look at this book I find something new. In this book, Shomei Tomatsu documents pre and post war Japan in the 1950s. He depicts startling images of westerization on Japanese Culture, and the effects of hiroshima. The everyday moments he captured speak in volumes and sheds a new light on an era that changed Japanese culture forever.

This is a high caliber photographic book. The images are stunning and the layout is easy to navigate. The text is informative and well written, but nothing compares to the visuals.

The work of this photographer is simply amazing and shocking, really interesting view about thinks around him, original and new and impacting..the only thing I didn't like is that the 1/3 of the book are forewords..but definitely it's worth !!!

When I saw this exhibition 4 years ago it blew me away. Shomei Tomatsu is such a treasure and captured Japans post war period like no other, with such depth and meaning. This is a great book, great print quality

This is book is beautiful. I had the pleasure to see the exhibition of Tomatsu's work at the Corcoran a few years ago, and several images were burned into my mind. Particularly the image of a bottle after an atomic blast, the cigarettes & bubble gum series, and an untitled piece with a big blob of reddish orange pigment splat in the middle of the frame. (I am writing this from memory and don't have the advantage to just flip thru the book at this moment to find the exact titles...) His work is very much street photographer - and he's good at evoking emotion. Think Robert Doisneau with an Asian flair for simplicity.

I saw the book laying in the library, between all the other photography books. 80% of the all the bookcovers doesn't look inviting enough to open it. This was one 20% that I took. Now all the books that looks inviting on the outside can really disapoint you when you open the it. I think that from the 30% that is left, 27% of the books are very disapointing on the inside This book is the uposite, what a wonderfull suprice. This is a book word it to open. The inside off the book is just how it should be first a lot of information and criticts about Shomei and her work. And that the work of Shomei, it's deep, tatsing, it's got a feeling a soul. She's got a great feeling about how to see a composition, to organize the contrast. And last but not least, the differsity she put in here work is amazing. From black and white, untill full clor and everything between there. From subkects of human beens untill abstract architecture and evreything between there. From very personal images untill very detached. From really close untill verry far. From very meaningfull untill very unmeaningfull. From a frozen image untill a fast movement image. Yeah, I think this a book is an inspiration for every artist in business.