shashasha

Masatoshi Naito’s iconic photobook Tokyo 1970-1985, offers each viewer a rare glimpse into the world beneath the more frequently photographed subjects of Japan. Captured during the 70s and 80s of Tokyo, Masatoshi Naito interest in traditional Japanese folklore and esoteric traditions photographed within the series Baba Bakuhatsu ( Grandma Explosion), is again evident within the images contained within this photo book. Here Masatoshi captures the inner, hidden and abstruse life of those who dwell in the darkest and innermost areas of the city. Beggars, drunks, and prostitutes all perform within the pages of this photo book, shot with open flash the images are vivid, raw and visceral illuminating a world in which can only be accommodated within spaces which are most comfortable at night. Each image serves as a documentation, a photographic journey in which the viewer follows along the lens of Masatoshi, traveling along the boundaries of both the real and hallucinatory, presenting a photographic narrative which truly identified the metamorphosis of a city warped and shaped through its changes towards modernization.