#yuji obata

[fragrantblossoms]

Obata, Yuji, Wintertale

[gacougnol]

Yuji Obata Homage to Wilson A. Bentley #1 2005-2006

[shihlun]

Yuji Obata, Men Queuing up for boat tickets, Shanghai, 1986.

[lolaempire]

Horses  #5, 2005-2006 22 x 33 inch pigment print-Edition of 10

by Yuji Obata

[oliviajankowska-blog]

779.9952 OBA

The book I was given to analyse is called “Wintertale”, it is illustrated with the works of Yuji Obata. Published in 2007, written partly by Yuji Obata himself and Ogura Takashi. The book didn’t exactly give out much by its cover. The front is covered in soft, tinted blue, slightly glittery fabric with a metallic silver Japanese writing in the right hand corner, which I assume means Wintertale in Japanese. If you turn the book at point, you notice that the edge of each page inside is also covered in metallic silver. The back cover, is a stuck on photograph which looks like its been partly cut to fit the cover. The photograph is a black and white, highly contrasted blur of a racing horse. It looks almost animated in a sense of how it was edited. 

When you peak inside, the first image you see is of a group of Japanese teenagers standing in the middle of a snowy ground surrounded by leafless trees. You turn to the next page and it’s a double page spread of a winter landscape, this could be giving us a hint of the location used in Obata’s photos throughout the book. The next few photos present kids iceskating, more landscapes and some one-off close up of a tree. The only page with writing on is a little further into the book. Yuji Obata shares a story of how his adventure of photographing this series, in an ice-cold weather had begun. The author mentions a visit to a museum which featured a painting by Pieter Bruegel-a, ‘The Hunters in the snow’. He tells the audience how stunned he was by the painting and that’s when the idea of wanting to go to a snowy place, to see it with his own eyes was born. Officially, he ended up going to Betsukai to photograph ice-skaters in 2005, and after he travelled further North to visit more similar places and that’s when he experienced “snow crystals” falling from the sky with his eyes. 

Most of the book focuses on snowflakes and how he adapted his camera and microscope skills to create beautifully done compositions of snow flakes in the night sky. Inspired by the photographer, W.A. Bentley who was one of the first ones to publish a book on how to take photographs of snowflakes. This is when the meaning of the book cover comes in again, the fabric its covered in, is supposed to represent snow and coldness, and the hint of metallic silver stands for what he calls “snow crystals”, which I wouldn’t of guessed until reading the spread. There’s no titles for individual images and if you find one odd caption, it is written in Japanese. By the end of the book, you understand that the theme of this book is nature. The amount of photographs of animals, trees, winter landscapes, snowflakes and then random people iceskating - tells you so. It’s a rather odd mix in my opinion but you know that Yuji Obata’s aim was to show his winter adventures from a past few years in one book.

[ellishutch]

Snowflakes

I have just discovered the work of Yugi Obata and have fallen instantly in love!

http://www.danzigergallery.com/artists/yuji-obata

[oneyearofbooks]

One Year for Japan, 2015 : Yuji Obata

France is so cold right now... it's difficult for me to go outside, well actually the thing is that we are not used to it !!!

I love this ice skating picture, it's so pure, so simple. A few years back Yuji Obata published the book Wintertale, that how I first saw his work. Those who follow the blog know how much I love snow in pictures, and all that goes with snow !

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I have published this calendar to raise money for National Parents Network to Protect Children from Radiation, in Japan. You can order it there : Lozen Up.

18 euros + shipping, 500 copies, a nice Christmas gift, and a beautiful way to donate to Japan after 3/11/2011 earthquake and tsunami.

[lawhimsy]

 Homage to Wilson A. Bentley #10 by Yuji Obata ~ La