Yukichi Watabe - Alaska Eskimo - 1978

Alaska Eskimo

Yukichi Watabe
Asahi Sonorama/1978/Japanese/210*215*13

Photographer Yukichi Watanabe's photo collection “Alaska Eskimo”. Photographer Yukichi Watanabe, whose work is undergoing renewed appreciation, documented police officers investigating a murder case in the 1950s. This photographic record was published as the photo collection “A Criminal Investigation” and “Stakeout Diary”. Supported by journalist Shigeru Tamura since the postwar period, Watanabe worked as a freelancer from the 1950s onward, traveling extensively both domestically and internationally to continue his reporting. Although numerous works appeared in newspapers and magazines, few were published as photo books. This volume is one of the rare photo books Watanabe left behind during his lifetime, featuring works shot in Alaska Eskimo. Accompanying the Alaska Scientific Expedition for a feature in the inaugural issue of the magazine Taiyo, he documented tribes living primitive lives inland and along the coast. Taken in the early 1960s, it took 17 years for this collection to finally be compiled into a photobook. By the time of its publication, the lives of the tribal people had already become thoroughly modernized, making this a precious volume capturing an unknown way of life. (Included in The Japanese Photobook 1912–1990)