shashasha

Katsumi Watanabe began his career as a “traveling photographer,” walking around Shinjuku’s streets and shops offering to take photographs for 200 Yen per pose. He continued to photograph Shinjuku’s streets and the people that populated them throughout his entire life, until his death in 2006. In 1982, Watanabe traveled to India in search of his old Shinjuku.

The photobook “Shinjuku, India, Shinjuku” collects Watanabe’s work, split into three chapters. In photographs whose jet-black darkness seems to envelop Watanabe’s subjects, scenes from the old, wild Shinjuku come back to life, mingle with Watanabe’s intermezzo in India, and tell the story of an often overlooked photographer.

“There is only one photographer who has captured Shinjuku as the stadium of desire, the great wilderness that it actually is: Katsumi Watanabe” — Daido Moriyama

The book also includes several essays written by cultural figures like Daido Moriyama and Shuji Terayama.

All texts only available in Japanese.