Devouring Photobooks #7 — SUBWAY DIARY by MURAKAMI MASAKAZU
Specifications
Title: Subway Diary
Photographer: Murakami Masakazu
Published: 2020, limited edition of 800
Dimensions: 223 × 305 mm
About the book
In this book contains over 140 black and white photographs taken in the subway and the surrounding areas of Tokyo. Photographer Murakami Masakazu captured fragments of his everyday life with his camera as a form of visual diary. Also as a way to deal with his anxiety towards this world.
By looking at the photographs, I can feel the slight underlying tension that is present in the photographs.
About the photographer
Different from the photographers I have wrote about in this series, Murakami Masakazu is comparatively recent. It somehow makes me feel more relatable, both him a person and his work. (He even has an Instagram account! Wow, just like me!)
Murakami captured the diverse reality experienced by many city dwellers and lets the entirety of the other reality, the other world hiding beyond the mesh of slits, shine through in his photographs.
-Moriyama Daido
What I feel about the book
The reason I got this book was because I was coincidentally also trying to take photographs in the subway. And I am a sucker for high contrast black and white photographs.
The high contrast, super grainy photographs gives off a forceful, punchy look but at the same time, a dreamy atmosphere to the photographs, just like broken pieces of a dream that you would not remember, or fading memories that suddenly come up in your head, fitting the “diary” nature of the photos in my opinion.
When I look at the photos, I could not help but associate his style with Moriyama Daido. Aside from the artistic style, the subjects of the photographs are sometimes quite similar as well. But I guess in a board sense, they are both doing street photography in the same city, it is reasonable to have similarity between the two photographers’ work.
The way “Subway Diary” presents its’ theme reminded me of “The solitude of ravens” by Masahisa Fukase.
Although the photobook is named “Subway Diary”, some images were taken outside of Tokyo’s underground. Similar to “The solitude of ravens”(the photobook that made me realise that I don’t have to have a very concrete subject — a “thing” that presents in all of the photographs to make a photo series cohesive), the theme of the book is not presented directly but instead, thematically.
All in all, I like this book quite a lot, I find it inspiring to look at from time to time.
Thank you for reading.
(See more photobook reviews here)
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