Tokyo View

Hiroh Kikai's photobook "Tokyo View." Published by Kazetabisha in 2016, this photobook compiles street corner photographs of Tokyo that Kikai continued to shoot for over 40 years, in parallel with his portraits of people taken in Asakusa. It includes 120 monochrome works shot with a Hasselblad.

The book captures everyday scenes primarily from Tokyo's downtown areas, such as shopping streets, snack bars beneath houses, alleyways, branching roads, building walls, and signs. Unlike the Asakusa portraits that capture subjects head-on, this book focuses not on the people themselves, but on the urban structure and the traces of life left within it.

In the essay by Hideki Maeda at the end of the book, the "frame" in Kikai's photographs is discussed as a crucial theme. It explains how narrowing the field of vision with building walls, windows, stairs, and dead-end alleys allows one to feel the unseen time and life beyond. Monochrome photographs of deserted street corners are interpreted as a layering of the present landscape and the accumulated time behind it.

Furthermore, the exclusion of color in monochrome is seen as a way to distance oneself from the details of the immediate cityscape and to create the depth of a place using only light and shadow. Fragments of daily life, such as rain-soaked walls, laundry, signs, and shadows falling in alleys, preserve the presence of lives lived there, even without depicting human figures. Limited to 800 copies.

[Title] Tokyo View
[Publisher] Kazetabisha
[Publication Date] March 25, 2016
[Pages] 132 pages
[Size] Approx. 304×372×19mm / 1770g
[Format] Hardcover
[Language] Japanese / English
[Title Reading] TOKYO MOYOU
[Author/Editor, etc.] Hiroh Kikai / Author, Katsuhito Uomoto / Book Design
[Printing/Binding] Dai Nippon Printing / Printing & Binding
[ISBN] -
[Condition] Used [5] Good (corner bumps)
[Accessories] -
[Featured In] -
[Related Exhibitions] -

Hiroh Kikai (1945–2020)

Born in Yamagata Prefecture in 1945. After graduating from Hosei University with a degree in Philosophy, he worked as a truck driver, a crew member on a deep-sea tuna fishing boat, and a darkroom technician before becoming a photographer.

Around 1973, he began visiting Asakusa and dedicated many years to creating portrait works of people he met in the temple grounds, shooting them head-on. These were published in collections such as "O-tachi no Shozo" (Portraits of Kings), "Ya Chimata," and "PERSONA." Concurrently, he also continued to photograph Tokyo's street corners, buildings, and alleyways, compiling these works into books like "Tokyo Meiro" (Tokyo Labyrinth), "Tokyo Mutan" (Tokyo Dreams), and "Tokyo Portrait."

He is also known for his extensive photographic work in India and Anatolia. In 2011, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography held his exhibition "Tokyo Portrait." He passed away in 2020.

< Related Figures >

Asakusa
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
Kazetabisha
Portrait