We’re approaching high summer here in the US. Which is the time to relax, soak up some sun, and drink Belgian beer to cool you down. Or ice water. Or lemonade. (You get the point.)
To all the readers in the Southern Hemisphere, however, you have my condolences. Winter isn’t as much fun as summer, unless you get to ski every day, and who really lives like that? So we’ll try to have all the fun for you, unless you’ve got the whole Equatorial-life-style thing going. (And that comes with requisite mosquitos.)
Where was I? Summer. What’s the next word that follows summer, like rty follows que? That’s right. Vacation.
I’m not taking one this year, though. As I live in a vacation destination, all I need is a change of attitude, the gumption to shut off the Internet, and my staycation will be just fine.
What about you? Are going anywhere fun? Have you planned your own ClarkGriswoldian adventure?
If not, I have a solution. Let’s pretend we WE’RE taking a trip. Where would you go? A Greek beach on the Mediterranean? Watch a World Cup game in the Amazonian jungles of Manaus. (Where you can imagine yourself a latter-day Klaus Kinski.) Spelunking in Mexico?
We could pretend to do all sorts of things. Volcano-hopping in Guatemala? The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam? What about Japan? Have you been? I’ve always wanted to go there. Who doesn’t have their own little “Lost in Translation” fantasy?
What if we just invaded some Japanese photographer’s travel journal? Would that work? The black, rounded-edges kind, with some elastic on the outside? (For holding your thoughts in place.) Motohiko Hasui’s new book “Personal Matters,” published by Bemojake, allows us just this opportunity.
Some of pictures have timestamps on them, from April of 2012, or around Christmas time. It varies. There’s no mention of where, but you know/suspect you’re in Japan. Are they real snapshots, taken for no other reason than recording a personal history? Who knows?
But you get the voyeuristic pleasure of seeing someone else’s memories of weirdos, flowers, parking lots, cute girls, trees, funny moments, fur coats, a ridiculous-looking dog monster wearing fake horns, a stark mattress in an empty room, a skyline, some woman eating sushi, that sort of thing.
I opened it up, unsure of what would be inside, and I got a fake, free, virtual vacation. As I don’t get to keep the book, I didn’t have to pay a dime. And as you don’t have to pay to utilize this website, we’re all in the same boat. (Alas, it’s not a yacht rounding the Cap d’Antibes…)
Bottom Line: A cool little photo diary for summer “reading”
To Purchase “Personal Matters” Visit Photo-Eye
Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.
Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.
5 Comments
Another boring book of snapshots. Save a buck and browse a tumblr.
Or 55 bucks in this case. Really?
psst! shush! don’t tell the art-world about the t* word.
I do agree about the batch editing picture what is instead of the old tool. This tools using is so much easy. Could you please give me the new workflow what is cumbersome and consuming.
I don’t get art.
Is this even art? And for $55?
There is little technical merit seen in the review.
So what gives?
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