Masaki Yamamoto’s highly anticipated first photobook presents one of the most daring family portraits in Japanese photography.
Shot entirely in his family’s tiny apartment, with walls yellowed from cigarette smoke, broken doors and trash covering the ground, Yamamoto’s unashamed, uncompromising black-and-white photos nonetheless depict a strong and rare sense of familial intimacy and affection. Not quite dysfunctional, but decidedly atypical.

“As we grew up, we had different experiences of being bullied, socially withdrawn, sick, badly behaved and so on. These experiences intertwined with the Yamamoto family’s history and are what makes up our lives as well as the family’s bonds today”

— from Masaki Yamamoto’s afterword

Book Size
288 x 220 x 13 mm
Pages
144 pages, 92 images
Binding
Softcover, Codex Bookbinding
Publication Date
2017
Language
English, Japanese
ISBN
978-4-905453-56-7

Artist Profile

Masaki YAMAMOTO

Born in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan in 1989, Yamamoto graduated from the Japan Institute of Photography and Film in 2012. He received the annual Jun Miki Award at the Nikon Salon Juna 21 Exhibition in 2015 and the Editor’s Photo Award of Zooms Japan in 2016. In the same year, Yamamoto took part in the group exhibition “Three and Eight” at Zen Foto Gallery and published an accordion-fold poster for the exhibition with the gallery. In 2017, he had his solo exhibition at Mind’s Eye — Adrian Bondy Gallery, Paris and his first photobook “GUTS” was published with Zen Foto Gallery. Yamamoto’s works are collected by Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris in 2017, and the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts in 2017, 2021 and 2022. In 2022, he participated in “Inside Out”, a group exhibition of 15 Japanese and Israeli photographers at the TEO Center for Culture, Art and Content, Herzliya.

Gallery Exhibitions