shashasha

Tokyo-based gallery and publisher Akio Nagasawa offers the complete edition of Issei Suda’s series “Monogusa Shui.”
Originally serialized in Nippon Camera magazine between 1980 and 1982 (with 13 additional works featured in a 1983 exhibition), “Monogusa Shui” contributed to Issei Suda winning the prestigious Photographic Society of Japan Annual Award in 1983. Shot in back alleys, parks, plazas, hidden spots and streets (mostly) near his own Tokyo neighborhood, these photographs exemplify Issei Suda’s genius as a photographer, his flâneur-like visual poetry and ability to bring out another, mysterious layer hidden somewhere within reality.

“I can’t help but feel that there is some kind of spiritual power also in objects. No matter whether it’s naturally grown plants or artificially made objects, I just believe that such things exist. Whenever I happen to capture something like that in a photography, I feel that it has an inner life, something deep inside that comes out and appeals in some way to those who look at it. I don’t have the skill to precisely reflect such things in my work, but it is my desire to somehow grab them with my hands.”
― from Issei Suda’s afterword (originally written for the December 1980 issue of Nippon Camera)