青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

[Chinese follows English.]

From early 2020, Covid-19 spread rapidly throughout the world, forcing people to drastically reduce contact with others and confine themselves to the limited space of their homes. Photographer Mikiya Takimoto saw all of his commercial shoots and advertising work, typically involving large groups of people, cancelled. Not only that, he was no longer able to pursue his usual style of art photography, which until then had called for elaborate setups in far-flung corners of the world.

During that time, Takimoto happened to spot some tiny rapeseed flowers blooming on a riverbank. Sensing the same powerful force of nature in them that he had felt from the Earth while working in inhospitable remote regions, he began taking photos of these and other unassuming wildflowers in his daily surroundings. Over the next three years he captured successive moments in the enduring life of flowers and grasses and explored the “microcosm” harbored therein, giving shape to a series that he named Lumière (French for “light”).

In fall 2020 Takimoto also participated in the Kyotographie international photography festival, where he learned the Buddhist phrase en’yu, meaning the integrality of all things completely in harmony, and encountered temple architecture and gardens that brimmed with tranquility. This experience gave him the feeling of a connection with the flow of time, from hundreds and thousands of years ago up to the present, and inspired him to keep visiting and photographing several temples. Thus a second series, Prière (French for “prayer”), was born.

Now, both series are available to readers in books created through the finest attention to paper and printing. High-quality Vent Nouveau paper is used throughout for printability and texture—attributes that are both sought after, but often all too hard to achieve together. The cover is cloth with pasted paper and metal-foil print. The printing, meanwhile, adds gloss to the standard four CMYK colors so as to convey the true image of Takimoto’s works to the greatest extent possible.

These are Takimoto’s first collections of all-new photographs in around ten years, and together they evoke the cycle of life and the coexistence of living things and the Earth.

Includes essays by independent scholar Mao Morita (Lumière) and literary critic Reiji Ando (Prière)
Published by MT Gallery; distributed by Seigensha

Mikiya Takimoto was born in 1974 and started as an independent photographer in 1998 after studying under Tamotsu Fujii. He is active in many fields, including ad photography and commercials, and has published and exhibited his work extensively both in Japan and overseas. Major series include Bauhaus Dessau (2005), Sightseeing (2007), Land Space (2013), Le Corbusier (2017), and Chaos (2018).

LUMIÈRE——光
以新冠疫情为契机而诞生的10年来第一部期待已久的作品，两部作品同时出版。

2020年初，新型冠状病毒在全球引发爆炸性感染，人类不得不大幅减少与他人的接触，将自己关闭在家中等有限的空间内。 长期与摄影为伴的泷本干也也被迫停止了所有通常以大团队形式进行的商业拍摄和广告工作，再也无法像过去那样飞到世界各地，使用大型设备进行拍摄作品。

就在这个时候，泷本偶然发现了河边盛开的一朵小油菜花，感受到了与他以往在荒凉且无人居住的偏远地区拍摄时看到的，作为地球这颗星球所具有的强大生命力同等的自然力量，于是开始拍摄野花野草。 他在熟悉的花草中发现了生命延续的瞬间，并花了三年时间探索它们内部生生不息的 “小宇宙”，最终完成了《LUMIÈRE》（法语，意为 “光”）系列作品。

2020年秋天，参加了京都国际摄影节的泷本，得知了 圆融（佛学术语。万物完美地融为一体，互不干扰），面对充满宁静的寺庙建筑和庭院。在那里，他感觉自己与数百年或数千年前延续至今的时光联系在了一起，他行走并拍摄了各个寺庙，创作了 PRIÈRE（法语，意为 “祈祷”）系列作品。

在将照片编成摄影集的过程中，对纸张和印刷也非常讲究。内页用纸采用了将印刷性和纸张的质感这两个截然相反的特质完美结合的VENT NOUVEAU（宛如珀）高级印刷纸，将其使用在所有的页面，封面则采用了布面，并使用标题纸和烫金工艺。在通常的四色基础上加了光油，通过五色印刷尽可能再现了作品的色彩。

这是泷本干也时隔十年来的新摄影集，反映了他对生命的轮回以及生物与地球的共存的思考。

供稿人：森田真生（独立研究员）

(出版商：MT Gallery / 发行商：青幻舎）

泷本干也
生于1974年。 师从藤井保氏，1998年成为独立摄影师。此后，从事商业摄影和广告视频拍摄，在日本国内外发表自己的作品并出版作品集等，持续开展各种活动。