Katsumi Watanabe - Discology - 1982

Discology

Katsumi Watanabe
Banseisha/1982/Japanese/190*120*13

Photographer Katsumi Watanabe's photo collection ‘Discology’. Wandering the streets, Katsumi Watanabe was known as a street photographer who took portraits in sets of three for 200 yen. From the mid-1960s onward, he walked the night streets of Shinjuku, capturing night workers, young people, vagrants, homosexuals, delinquents, and yakuza with his camera. He was captivated by Shinjuku, a theater of life where countless dramas unfolded. This book is a collection of photographs primarily depicting the “Disco Tribe” taken from the mid-1970s onward. Though he had become a freelance street photographer and his name was starting to spread, his photos weren't selling. Struggling financially and feeling stuck in both his photography and his life, he happened to hear Bob Marley's music. Finding pleasure in reggae, he developed an interest in a sound he had previously ignored. Just as he resolved to push forward again, he headed to a disco. Discovering the joy of dancing, finding fascination in revelry, and drawn to the shameless revelry of the disco tribe, this is the photographer's own documentary. A volume from Banshōsha's Yagenbura Selected Books, designed by Kohei Sugiura.