Surprise! For those of you who ordered the second edition of YAKUZA, I present you with the new cover image. I hope you like it… The inside of this second edition is the same as the sold out limited edition… but the last image, binding, chapter paper and cover are different. Read more about that here. Exciting… In about ten days the second edition will be stitched and bound, the cover attached, and all the books will be individually shrinkwrapped, ready to be packed and shipped. And so the distribution... Read the Rest →
These past two months have been great. Humbling also. More than anything else, I’m incredibly grateful for all the attention YAKUZA gets everywhere… Many good things have happened and I’m hoping many more good things will come. And it started all on BURN magazine with David Alan Harvey as my mentor… I literally owe you everything, amigo. I’ve literally received more than a thousand emails after the limited edition sold out, asking if there were plans for a second (general) edition of ODO YAKUZA TOKYO. At the time, I’ve always... Read the Rest →
I never thought it would go this way. I expected to sell about half of what I printed, ever. Instead, the book ODO YAKUZA TOKYO opened on BURN on June 17, and now, 34 days later, the 500 copy limited edition is sold out… If you have any enquiries about this edition, just send me a direct email. Today I’m wrapping the final book to ship. It does feel kind of sentimental. Completely honored, and grateful to the chance I’ve been given, I now need a rest. Just a... Read the Rest →
Finally…. it’s here! The book…. Over on BURN Magazine there’s a great interview by David Alan Harvey with me about the new book… and obviously you can buy it there. Please do so… it’s a beautiful object… and limited to only 500 numbered copies… Below an excerpt from the introductory text: In the hotel bar in Niigata, I’m only slowly starting to understand the extremely subtle social interaction that is continuously happening; the micro-expressions on the faces, the gestures, the voices and intonations, the body language… As the bar... Read the Rest →
This is Taka-san in the mirror creating calligraphy for the ODO YAKUZA TOKYO book (more info on the book soon). He is our fixer for the entire Yakuza project, and over the years has become a dear friend. His work will be featured as chapter pages in the book. There will be 12 works in total. He’s not a professional artist, but his calligraphy has a very strong personality speaking through it. It’s a very emotional and exhausting process for him to put his sentiments about the Yakuza story into... Read the Rest →
A week before 9/11 2001, my good friend Luc and I started Ang’l web design. Needless to say, a week later we thoroughly regretted that decision. But we hung in there; and now, 8 years later, we’re still very much in business. What used to be a two-man operation has now grown to a lean mean mini-agency of 5 people, and a turnover we can all live comfortably from. Ang’l provides me with the necessary freedom so i can pursue my long term photographic projects, slowly making the transition to... Read the Rest →
I’ve worked all day to prepare everything. Made galleries on my portable; made prints at Yodobashi Camera. Wrapped everything up nicely to present to him. When we meet at his office around 11pm, Soichiro, my brother, and I go through the whole collection of images i have made up till that point. I’m nervous as hell. Slowly we go through every gallery, every image… Once in a while he flags one because he wants to ask a question or he wants me to make a print of it. To be... Read the Rest →
Kabukicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo… Walking the streets with Souichirou and his family. Kabukicho is the red light, food & gambling district of Shinjuku, smack in the middle of Tokyo. We gather at his office, where he shows me the work of Watanabe Katsumi, a japanese street photographer of this particular district who, for about 40 years, barely making a living, sold his street photographs back to his subjects. Amazing stuff. I’m surprised that somehow he must have taken the time to research this book and lend it to me to look... Read the Rest →
David Alan Harvey and I started Burn Magazine in December 2008, just before Christmas. We both committed to BURN in NYC in December 2008 (after a large gathering of great friends & fellows where the BURN idea actually crystallized – read this), shook hands, and simply went for it. I know we launched on an impossible moment right before or after Christmas – I can’t remember which day exactly – but right now, either one of those days sounds like impeccably bad timing from our part :-) And throughout the... Read the Rest →
Meet Souichirou. He has agreed to us getting to know each other. Through the barriers of different languages and cultures, we will be approaching each other with the broadest possible open mind. To learn, to tell our stories. To gain trust and to share views. — Soichiro and his family control Kabukicho, in the heart of Shinjuku, Tokyo. Not much happens in the streets without his approval. — After more than 10 months of preparation and ground work by my brother and our dear friend Taka-san, finally, for the first... Read the Rest →
Braakland ZheBilding… ten young actors in a play about their fears their hopes their secrets their shames their inability to do anything about it…. - set in an abandoned hospital wing - “I’ve got so much to do, so much to achieve, how can i ever have the time to do it all…” Tweet
