ZEN FOTO GALLERY

Yamamoto’s previous book “Guts” was published by Zen Foto in 2017, featuring bold, candid and unashamed photographs he took of his family inside the small one-room apartment from 2014 to 2017. Well received and featured by many media outlets overseas, the book was shortlisted for the 2018 Paris Photo–Aperture First PhotoBook Award and sold out shortly after. For this highly anticipated sequel, Yamamoto came back with portraits of his family taken after they moved to a detached house in 2017. Strangely, the photos look as if the Yamamoto family is still living in the old apartment. Indeed, the Yamamoto family will always be the same no matter where they are — full of love, surprises and adventure — and Yamamoto’s downright documentation continues to intrigue us.

“... As I was working towards the publication of this photobook, I showed them the photos and they told me, “It looks just like the apartment we were in before we moved!” “What’s so good about these messy photos!”
Now my mother grows herbs in the garden, we each have our own rooms, and there is a washlet bidet in the bathroom. It was our dream to have a spacious and beautiful house and, as my sister said, it was a relief. But the photographs look no different from the photos taken in our previous old and battered apartment, I think because the Yamamoto family behaves in its own way, just as a living creature would behave largely the same even after entering a new habitat.
Different worlds are hidden inside each of the houses that we pass by, and the Yamamotos are in one of these hidden corners. While my previous work “Guts” was a reaffirmation of the habits and lifestyle of my own family, “The Yamamotos” is my examination of the family in a new setting, after moving to a detached house. I hope that ‘The Yamamotos’ will enable people to see the family in a new way, and to reconsider their views on their own family.”
― Masaki Yamamoto