ZEN FOTO GALLERY

Suda Issei passed away in Mach 2019. In 1979, the year his best-known work “Waga Tokyo 100” was released, Issei began photographing Tokyo’s Kanda area, where he was born in 1940, in 35mm film. The work was serialized in Asahi Camera from 1982 to 1983, together with commentary by photography critic Masao Tanaka, under the title “Tokyo Modern Pictorial.” Now, forty years later, the series is finally revived in the form of this photobook.

“These photos are not from modern times, although the title says so. They were taken in Tokyo during the 1980s. (…) We say ten years can bring a lot of changes. More than ten years flew by and Mr. Tanaka, who was laughing beside me, has already joined the spirit world. Scenes that have and have not changed—”Tokyo Modern Pictorial” of 2018 is right in front of us. While the present is right before my eyes, “My Tokyo” is occasionally brought back to the modern from 36 years ago. In these images, Tokyo seems to be a melange of different times and remains a world apart from the passage of time.” – from Suda Issei’s afterword (written September 2018)