JAPANESE GARDEN - BOOK REVIEW

"Serene Gardens" by Yoko Kawaguchi

Peace and quiet: the familiar phrase fits perfectly. Nothing stirs in these scenes except the current in a stream or waterfall. No sounds disturb except the occasional birdcall or the buzz of a cicada.
Far from trying to dramatize a piece of natural scenery, the two men who took these pictures have removed themselves. We see what they saw, with our own eyes. And in this quiet peaceful way, we see the landscape of their country change. The stubble of empty rice fields is ploughed under; the irrigation channels fill, and fields are flooded to receive the first plantings. At the edge of the ripening crop, wild lilies come into flower. By late summer the stalks are high, then harvested and hung on poles to dry. And, come midwinter, these terraced fields are buried under heavy snow. Intimate Seasons is a special little book.

Shinzo Maeda was born in the western suburbs of Tokyo in 1922. After working for a general trading company for seventeen years, he became a full-time professional photographer, founding the Tankei photo library in 1967. His personal style of landscape photography won him a number of major awards in his lifetime, including the top prize of the Japan Photographers Association. Before his death in 1998, he published forty-six photo books in Japan, and eight in other countries.
Akira Maeda, his eldest son, was born in 1954. From his junior high school days on, he accompanied his father on photo shoots, and after graduating from Waseda University he joined the photo library his father had established. He is now a recognized landscape photographer in his own right.


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