Shomei Tomatsu - I Am A King - 1972

In 1972, at the age of forty-two and already established as one of Japan's most important photographers, Tomatsu moved to Okinawa. I am a King is his magnum opus of this period. The book gathers portraits of politicians, roadside scenes, 1960's era protests, images of industrial detritus, and the urban skyline. A persistent theme is the Americanization of post WWII Japan and the upheaval it wrought on traditional Japanese culture.

At its center, I Am a King has a section produced at the height of the student protests, in 1969-70, pairing photographs with a month's worth of his own diary entries. The fact that the text is his own, places Tomatsu's book far from the Japanese photobooks of the prewar period, in which photographers efforts were often framed with essays or statements by hired critics. The book is typical of Tomatsu's oeuvre, in that it magnifies documentary photography through the use of montage, abstraction, and the mixing of color and black-and-white images.

Original stiff wrappers in photo-illustrated dust jacket. Printed cardboard slipcase. Numerous black-and-white and color reproductions throughout.