青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

[Chinese follows English.]

Ad photos, commercials, art photography, cinematography—Mikiya Takimoto works in all these fields, crossing together diverse genres into singular artistic expressions that grow ever richer as his career progresses. This collection, the first of its kind for Takimoto, focuses on the advertising work he has produced for clients in the quarter century between his start as an independent photographer in 1998 and 2023.

The volume comprises two parts. Part 1 presents a varied selection of some 120 photographic projects, including “Tokyo City Keiba Twinkle Lady Award,” one of Takimoto’s first efforts after turning independent; the early masterpiece “Toshimaen Pool”; and the main promotional visuals for Ryomaden, Sanadamaru, Reach Beyond the Blue Sky, and other historical TV dramas by public broadcaster NHK. His images for the CD albums of Mr. Children, among them Home and Supermarket Fantasy, are memorable even to those who aren’t fans of the band; his posters for the films of director Hirokazu Kore-eda include those for Like Father, Like Son and Our Little Sister, in both of which Takimoto also participated as a cinematographer. The posters for the Japanese broadcast of the 2015 World Table Tennis Championships earned him multiple overseas honors, while the advertising visuals for the Laforet Harajuku fashion building offer us the delight of seeing him in collaboration with a range of art directors. The photography for the Toyota 5 Continents Drive Project—in which Takimoto followed Toyota cars and employees out on the open road in Australia, North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia—took place on a scale far beyond what we think of as normal for advertising. Among his latest works, meanwhile, is the series of photos he took as part of a promotional campaign for Pocari Sweat sport drinks in 2023.

Part 2 brings together roughly 70 commercials, including three acclaimed series—“Grown-Up Elevator” for the Sapporo Draft Beer Black Label, which has been airing since 2010; “Here, Together” for Daiwa House, which has been embraced by viewers to a degree unusual for a TV commercial; and “We’re Acquainted” for the Sansan system of digital contact management, with its delightful contrast of polished visuals and offbeat humor. The all but legendary “Kirin Lager Beer: Time Slip” spot from 2006 stars none other than the three members of the Yellow Magic Orchestra; the series Takimoto created for McDonald’s carry the feel of a sequence of short films, while his commercials for Suntory Tennensui mineral water captivated viewers amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Not to be missed here are Takimoto’s recent projects, which demonstrate the new depths of expression he has reached through his cinematography work for Kore-eda.

The selections in both parts were made by Takimoto himself; the resulting volume comes out to a hefty total of nearly 600 pages, despite covering a mere 10 percent of his vast output. An added special feature is a discussion on the ideal relationship between photography and design by Takimoto and his close colleague, art director Kenjiro Sano, with whom he has worked repeatedly since the beginning of both their careers.

In today’s fast-changing world, ads come flooding out at us from seemingly every device. More and more, they are turning into so much extraneous “noise” that we skip through without a second thought, and that, indeed, makes Takimoto’s pursuit of the possibilities of advertising—grounded in his unwavering belief in the power of a single photo, a single 15-second spot—all the more valuable. His work may rightly be called a body of “advertising as art” like none other, and this book offers a satisfying look into his world, which ever seeks change even as it deepens.

Mikiya Takimoto was born in 1974 in Aichi Prefecture. He began studying photography under Tamotsu Fujii in 1994 and opened the Mikiya Takimoto Photography Office in 1998. Today he involves himself in a diverse range of activities, from shooting ad photos and commercials to publishing his own art photography and holding exhibitions in Japan and abroad. His creative eye and experience working in both photography and film led director Hirokazu Kore-eda to tap him to handle camerawork for three films—Like Father, Like Son; Our Little Sister; and The Third Murder—in which Takimoto gave shape to a richly distinctive visual world. Major series and publications include Bauhaus Dessau ⸫ Mikiya Takimoto (PIE Books, 2005), which takes a compositional view into the famed German school complex; Sightseeing (Little More, 2007), in which he travels to seven continents to capture people converging on the holiday atmosphere of tourist sites; Louis Vuitton Forest (Gentosha, 2011), portraying the forest preserve of the same name in Nagano; Land Space (Seigensha, 2013), which juxtaposes two contrasting series featuring primal scenes of the Earth (Land) and images of human civilization as epitomized by space exploration (Space); Le Corbusier (2017); and Crossover (Seigensha, 2018), a look back at the first twenty years of his career.

自2000年以来，在广告史上具有压倒性的存在，能体验到泷本干也世界观的1册

摄影师泷本干也在广告摄影、商业短片电影、作品制作、电影等广泛领域从事拍摄，通过跨越并融合各种表现形式，不断深化其独特的表现力。

在他的广泛工作中，本书的重点放在了他的商业拍摄作品，这也是他的第一本广告作品集，涵盖了从1998年（他开始摄影师生涯）到2023年的25年。

本书分为两部分：广告摄影和商业电影短片。

前半部分是广告摄影，包括他独立后不久参与拍摄的《东京市赛马闪耀女神奖》、他早期的代表作《丰岛游乐场泳池》、《龙马传》、《真田丸》和《势冲青天》等大河历史剧的主视觉；以及即使不是他的粉丝也会过目不忘的《HOME》和《SUPERMARKET FANTASY》等孩子先生乐队（Mr.Children）的专辑视觉、是枝裕和执导的电影（《如父如子》和《海街日记》）的宣传海报、在众多国外广告奖上获得高评价的《世界乒乓球》，以及与不同美术指导跨界合作的 Laforet 原宿的众多视觉作品、以超越广告拍摄规模的《丰田五大洲行走》的一系列视觉作品、2023年拍摄的《宝矿力水特2023》等，收录了涉及各行各业种类繁多的约120幅作品。

其次是商业电影短片部分，包括从2010年开始拍摄的《札幌生啤酒黑标 成年人电梯》、超越广告拍摄并备受喜爱的《大和House 一起在这里》系列、在酷炫视觉和搞笑之间具有反差但又能被欣赏的《Sansan 一面之缘》，以及如今被视为传说的由YMO的3位出演的《麒麟拉格啤酒 时光穿越》。所以作品犹如短片电影般的《麦当劳》系列，包括以及在新冠疫情期间给人留下深刻印象的《三得利天然水》，收录了70余篇商业短片作品，尤其是受了是枝导演委托完成了电影拍摄之后，增添的更深层次的表现力是不可错过的看点。

另外，作为特别内容还收录了与艺术总监佐野研二郎的对谈《摄影与设计的理想关系》，彼此自独立以来多次合作，可所谓是盟友般的存在的。

书中所收录的作品皆由泷本本人亲自挑选，虽然他从迄今为止的大量作品中精挑细选了仅其中的10%，但总页数仍达到约600页的量。

时代瞬息万变，各种设备中出现的“广告”泛滥至今。
正因为我们现在理所当然地把广告当作噪音，跳过广告，所以泷本相信一张照片或15秒视频的力量，不断追求广告的可能性，其表达的价值也会不断提升。

这是一本可以欣赏到泷本干也世界观的书，他在不断追求变化的同时，也在不断深化自己的作品，堪称独一无二的 “广告艺术”。

泷本干也
摄影师，1974年出生于爱知县，1994年起师从藤井保。
1998年成为独立摄影师，并成立了泷本干也摄影事务所。
他一直广泛的从事于广告摄影和商业影像工作，在日本国内外进行作品发布及出版等工作。
他在摄影和影像方面的丰富经验，以及作为表现者对表现力的见解受到了高度评价，是枝裕和导演委托他拍摄的《如父如子》、《海街日记》和《第三度嫌疑人》中，创造了一个独特的视觉世界。