Published by Aperture 
November 2005
21.3 x 15.2 cm / 224 pages /
English / Hardcover

The recent rise in the West of Japanese photography makes Setting Sun a crucial document. The first anthology of its kind to appear in English, this book collects key texts written from the 1950s to the present by the country's most celebrated and controversial photographers, and illuminates a set of ideas, rules and aesthetics that are specific to Japanese culture, but often little known elsewhere. Texts included are by Takuma Nakahira and Daido Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki and Eikoh Hosoe, Masahisa Fukase, Hiroshi Sugimoto, among others. Each chapter in the book is devoted to a central theme that is particular to Japanese photography, such as the role of nostalgia in a culture that has often sought to jettison its past amid the shadows of a war lost. The writings vary in form from diary entry to scholarly treatise, but all reflect a clear connection between word and image, one so essential that no comprehensive consideration of Japanese photography can be complete without it. Introduction by Takashi Homma.