shashasha

Shogo Yamada’s “A Record of Someone, Somewhere ~2~” is the second entry in a new series of hand-made photobooks of street photographs. Following the previous entry’s focus on Paris, volume 2 focuses on black-and-white photos that capture life in the streets of Osaka.

“I completed ‘A Record of Someone, Somewhere ~2~’ on November 11, 2021.
It follows ‘A record of someone, somewhere ~Paris~’ as the second book in this series.
Like the first book, I made the books myself using a hand-sewn saddle-stitch binding.

The book consists of 27 photographs first published in the first three issues of VACUUM magazine as well as 36 previously unpublished photographs
It did not feel right to return the photographs that did not appear in VACUUM to the box, never to be seen. I shot and selected these photographs just like the others, printed them and wanted them to be seen by other people. They just happened to be out of place in VACUUM.

If I had not arrived at the idea to create hand-made photobooks, these photographs would have been fated to sleep in a dark box, never to be seen by anyone. It would have been as if they had never happened. And so, for the time being, I would like to use this form of publication to let my printed images become books.

Except for one photograph, all the images in this book were taken in Osaka. Most of the photographs were taken in 2019.
In October 2021, Japan lifted the state of emergency. There are no more restrictions on opening hours, and bars and restaurants can serve alcohol again. But it still feels to me as if the city before me stays quietly and cautious, like someone who knows they are being watched.

There is nothing for me to do but walk around in it and take photographs, wondering what kind of images I’ll be able to take from now on. Whatever the result, I think I would like to publish them in a book again someday.”
― Shogo Yamada’s statement