
Obi and Sand: Kyoto/Enoshima
- Publisher
- Sokyusha
- Year
- 2024
- Specifications
- Hardcover, black and white
225 x 273 mm
176 pages
172 images
English / Japanese
Limited edition of 400 copies
Edited by Michitaka Ota
Design: 加藤勝也
Printing: 株式会社サンエムカラー
Shot in Kyoto and Enoshima in the 1990s and 2000s, Yoshio Mizoguchi's photobook presents snapshots of women and strangers against the backdrop of Kyoto and the mysterious air of its history in the first part, and the Pacific Ocean and sandy beaches of Enoshima in the second. His snapshots effortlessly combine the documentary aspect of street photography with a lightness of being and a playful, erotic gaze. The afterword recalls a geisha in a white kimono walking the narrow alleys of Pontocho on a hot summer afternoon, a large obi always at the centre of her figure, as if tying a woman's joys and sorrows at the waist; elsewhere it describes countless people in bathing suits, feet and buttocks covered in black sand, bodies sticky with sweat, sights that jumped into the eyes through the camera lens.