Have a Break & My Ektachrome
Koji Onaka
Negative Gallery
English and Korean
Softcover
16 pages
200 × 230 mm
2022
Eight years after his last travel photobook “Short Trip Again”, Koji Onaka again wandered through Japan’s hinterland, observing it through a 35mm lens.
Shot over a period of seven years, “Have a Break” features scenes taken in Hokkaido in the north, Kyushu in the south and many different stations in-between. Onaka’s fondness of a particular, unique style of color adds to the sentimental, deep sense of familiarity and warmth in his images, in which Onaka transforms everyday sights in small towns and rural regions into curious visual wonders.
“The photographs do not show anything particularly special that could be taken anywhere but scenes that strangely touched my heart – cityscapes, people, sunlight, or sometimes cats.”
(Source: https://www.shashasha.co/en/book/have-a-break)
About the Artist
In 1982, after graduating from Tokyo Photography College at 22, Onaka joined “CAMP,” an independent gallery founded by Daido Moriyama. Their first exhibition took place in 1983, featuring photos of Onaka’s hometown, which he hadn’t visited since childhood. At 28, he opened “Gallery Kaido” and held a series of 32 exhibitions titled “Seitaka-awadachiso” over four years. After the series ended, Onaka published his first photo book. Since then, he has traveled extensively in rural Japan and abroad, always searching for traces of their memories in the places he visits.
www.onakakoji.com
(Source: https://www.onakakoji.com/biography-english/ )
About the Publisher
Negative Gallery is a publisher based in Busan, South Korea.
