Mitsuhiro Kamimura: Photographing the Absence Photographs: Mitsuhiro Kamimura Texts: Toshiharu Ito Design: Kenta Shibano Translation: Kana Kawanishi Edit: Tamami Iinuma Born in Tokyo in 1948, Mitsuhiro Kamimura entered the Photography Course at Nihon University College of Art in 1966, resigned in 1969, and thereafter worked as a freelance photographer in the field of commercial photography. In commercial work, he says, "I took pictures of anything that was asked of me," but he also took time out from his work to create his own personal works. His subject was "architecture.” This book, which contains a total of 101 plates, is divided into three main parts. In the first part of the book, 57 monochrome photographs from four series produced from the late 1980s to the 2000s have been re-edited into a chapter called "Scenes of Absence.” In "Spectrogram," he photographed the way sunlight reflected off buildings clothed the city; in "Wall," the walls that appeared in vacant lots where private stores and houses had evacuated due to the land speculation of the bubble economy; in "Town," snapshots of a disappearing shopping street; and in "Passers-by," the shadows left behind by people passing through the city. The designer of this book, Kenta Shibano, wanted to express the sensitivity of Kamimura's legs as he walked around the city and the impulse to photograph the subjects when he met them. In the middle of the book, nine photographs from Kamimura's school days are inserted as "Etude 1968.” Kamimura's gaze is critical, yet still retains a certain naivete. The editor of this book, Tamami Iinuma, was interested in the symptoms of citizens in Kamimura's photographs of the “absence," and requested to include in this book the snapshots taken around 1968, before the "absence" began to appear in Kamimura's eyes. The last section of the book will include 35 color photographs. In Kamimura's masterpiece "Zoo" (winner of the 23rd Ina Nobuo Award), he visited zoos in cities around the world and photographed the rearing facilities when the animals were not in sight. While zoos are theaters for humans, they are also environments for animals to live in*. Through the camera, Kamimura looked at the relationship between the viewer and the seen, the distortion of the spatial context, and depicted the zoo as a stage set. (*cf. Berger, John. Why Look at Animals? For Gilles Aillaud (1977). In About Looking (1980). ) “Beyond Infinity," of which only eight are shown in this book, is an ambitious work that is still being photographed today. At the end of this book will be included a critique by art historian, Toshiharu Ito, titled "Photographing the Absence."  H260 x W244mm, 120p. 101 photographs, JP/EN Off-set Printing(4C), Hardcover Photographs: Mitsuhiro Kamimura Texts: Toshiharu Ito Design: Kenta Shibano Translation: Kana Kawanishi Edit: Tamami Iinuma Publisher: House of Architecture ISBN 978-4-9911475-2-4 *Please note that you understood that customs duty may be charged on your side for international delivery.