Poetry of Stones and Trees Kiyoshi Niiyama Yohichi Niiyama/1970/Japanese/210*230*5 A collection of photographs by Japanese photographer Kiyoshi Niiyama (1911-1969), who began his photographic career in 1936 with a “parlette camera” in his hands. After returning to Matsuyama, he worked at Asahi Kogaku (now Ricoh) from 1958 through an introduction by Hachiro Suzuki, an editor and photographer who had joined the company earlier. Despite being an amateur photographer, Niiyama had a high level of artistic ability, and he was also a great mentor to his younger colleagues, but in 1969, he was killed by a blade. This book is a collection of Shinyama's posthumous works, published in his memory in conjunction with an exhibition of his posthumous works held at PENTAX Gallery. Shinzan's most representative works were selected and organized by decade, such as the Perlet era, Matsuyama era, and Asahi Kogaku era, by a committee including Shoji Ueda, Yoichi Midorikawa, Hiroshi Hamaya, and others who were close friends of Shinzan during his lifetime. As the title suggests, Shinzan often photographed dead trees and stones, and Osamu Yagi called him “the Edward Weston of the Orient.” Hamaya described his work as “figurative but with a strong sense of empathy,” which he described as Japanese, in other words, Shinzan's aesthetics. (Included in The Japanese Photobook 1912-1990)