Contacts

by Toshio Shibata

Traditionally [Shibata's] photographic prints have been made on a large scale, so as to immerse the viewer in his images. This scale reveals the extraordinary detail contained within his images, giving the sense of a heightened version of reality. However, he recently presented a small group of photographs as contact prints, no more than a few centimetres wide. By compressing his borrowed landscapes in this way, a further layer of mystery is applied to these images. Rather than overpowering us with their scale, they become more delicate, more fragile as the geometric lines and abstract qualities of these compositions is emphasized. These contact prints provided the inspiration for this book.

Genres: Photography

64 pages, Paperback

First published September 9, 2013

Reviews

[Paul H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Given that my rating is currently the only one in the GR system for this book (Shibata's best), I think it's fair to say that he is possibly the most overlooked top-tier photographer out there. Shibata is easily as good as the best Düsseldorf school photographers (Struth, Gursky, et al.) or the f64 guys (Adams, Weston, et al.).

Contacts consists of austere large-format film landscape/architecture photos in a style that is all Shibata's own; a pretty good sampling can be found here, though it leaves out a fair amount of his best work.