Light and prayer: the simultaneous publication of two long-awaited titles sparked into creation by the pandemic.
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
Category:Japanese Photography Book
Tag:Microcosm
- Pages:
- 248
- ISBN:
- 9784861529689
- Release Date:
- October, 2024
- Language:
- Japanese
- Publisher:
- Seigensha
Author profile
Mikiya Takimoto
Photographer. Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1974. Began studying under Tamotsu Fujii in 1994.
Became independent as a photographer in 1998 and established the Mikiya Takimoto Photo Office.
Continues to actively work in various fields, including advertising photography and commercial films, as well as exhibiting and publishing works both in Japan and internationally.
With his rich experience in photography and film, and his perspective as an expressionist, he was entrusted by director Hirokazu Kore-eda to shoot films such as “Like Father, Like Son”, “Our Little Sister”, and “The Third Murder”, creating unique visual worlds.
His major works include “BAUHAUS DESSAU ∴ MIKIYA TAKIMOTO” (2005), which compositionally captures the German design school Bauhaus; “SIGHTSEEING” (2007), which captures people gathering at tourist spots across all seven continents highlighting their out-of-the-ordinary nature; “LOUIS VUITTON FOREST” (2011); and “LAND SPACE” (2013), a series contrasting the primal landscapes of ‘LAND’ with ‘SPACE’, symbolizing space exploration as a facet of civilization. Other works include “Le Corbusier” (2017) and “CROSSOVER” (2018).
Mikiya Takimoto’s books
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PRIÈRE by Mikiya Takimoto¥13,200
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LUMIÈRE by Mikiya Takimoto¥13,200
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Mikiya Takimoto Works 1998-2023¥9,900
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