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 →
Recently, the incredibly friendly and professional people at GEO Epoche magazine in Germany contacted me to supply images for their new issue about the history of organized crime throughout the world. Specifically, they wanted to use my images to complement their 18 page chapter about the history of the Yakuza in Japan from 1945 to 2010… of course I gladly obliged. This special issue #48 hits the stands today April 13, 2011. The editors at GEO Epoche are an absolute joy to work with. Super professional, an incredible eye to... Read the Rest →
In Tokyo now photographing cherry blossoms… For some reason, the past 3 years, somehow, in my ever infinite wisdom, I’ve always managed to miss this huge event. But not this year. This is going to be the closing image of what I think is the first major step in the Yakuza project: the photo book “ODO YAKUZA TOKYO”. Why cherry blossoms? Well, that’s another one of the many enigmas surrounding the Yakuza: “ODO” or 桜道, is literally translated as “the way of the cherry blossom”, and is the credo of... Read the Rest →
On the last night, Soichiro calls us to meet. He tells us some guys are going out, and that they are OK with us tagging along. On the way over, he explains to me that the club his friend owns, has a slight twist… Instead of a guest giving dollar bills to a dancer during a show, it works the other way around: the dancer chooses to collect dollar bills from a guest she chooses. — In this club, guests pay a fixed amount for a table and a fixed... Read the Rest →
So I’ve started working on the second issue of 893 Magazine (more about the first issue here). A bit of a delay compared to what I had hoped, but some (good) unexpected things did come up that warranted this… Not in the least winning the Blurb Photography Book Now prize for Editorial… and some other ultra mega cool things that I’ll hopefully be able to tell about very soon. But I’ve started. No turning back. And no matter how excited I am to share new stories and images, the beginning... Read the Rest →
I thought this was worth a mention: for an interview about my 893-Yakuza project, which will appear in the forthcoming January issue of Fotografie, a Dutch photography magazine, The Editor-in-Chief Diana Bokje (@dianabokje) does something special… not only does she print an interview which captures our various conversations very well, but she also reproduces 5 complete spreads directly out of 893 Magazine Issue#1, including original layout and texts. Simply amazing that someone not only recognizes but also acts upon the the link between images, layout, typography and writing in the... Read the Rest →
Members of other families arriving at the funeral of Miyamoto-san (one of the family bosses) to pay their respects. Miyamoto-san died in february 2010, as a result of a stroke.
This is Soichiro driving me through the streets of Shinjuku, Tokyo, in his third generation 1989 Nissan Skyline GT-R. It’s all white and retro as hell and yes, even though I’m not a car freak, I must admit it’s very cool. I like retro. Click on the image to see a short video of me trying to capture the moment. I never even knew he bought the car, and on the last night that I was there two weeks ago, while my brother and I were walking in Kabukicho debriefing... Read the Rest →
A few months ago, I entered Blurb Photography Book Now without any expectations… And suddenly, 2 weeks ago, I got a call from Eileen from Blurb. At that time I was in Japan for the YAKUZA project, right in the middle of photographing a covert training camp for young recruits. When I explained my potentially slightly precarious situation to her, she understood why I wasn’t able to jump up and scream “Yeah!”…. …but we had a great whispery conversation after that :-) Needless to say, I feel incredibly honored to... Read the Rest →
In February of this year, I got a call from Soichiro for an emergency. One of the most important family bosses, Miyamoto-san, had suffered a fatal stroke. His death was imminent. I pretty much dropped everything, and jumped on the plane to Tokyo. Even though he had kept very much to himself and always remained camera-shy, I had observed, gotten to know, and photographed the man for over 12 months; to see him lying there in that hospital bed, in a coma with no chance of recovery, felt very… human.... Read the Rest →
I thought I’d share three contact sheets. A “succesful” one, a “nope, I’ve not quite got it yet” one, and a sudden “hmm maybe there’s a new angle somewhere in here” one. (the difference in color between individual images is due to the fact that I only post process images that pass “first edit”) Tweet
Hey. Once in a while I should write about some tech stuff… and what other topic than the one that us visual artists care most about: our archives… Many articles on the web about this, but I’ve always felt that they assume incorrect things. Obviously I don’t want to go as far as being safe for Extinction Events, or being able to administer my archive on my 1987 Nokia phone… let’s say that I stay within certain limits of reason/feasibility, given the fact that I’m a one-man operation. I guess... Read the Rest →
A long overnight flight home is always a good time for introspection…. (especially in a window seat at the emergency exit, with a full moon outside :-) I feel blessed being able to do the things I am doing… blessed for the health of my family… and blessed that, even though we are literally scattered throughout the world, once every so often, we suddenly appear to be together in one geographical place – simply enjoying being. -anton Tweet
This time round has been extraordinarily difficult in Tokyo. It has been my longest trip to date (a full month), yet a slew of practical things and unforeseen circumstances have made me go home without a single usable image… Yes looking at it this way it seems frustrating… But, oddly enough, in hindsight, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be… concentrating on the stuff that comes after shooting the images, proved to be very fruitful. Oh, and of course this very same situation gave me time... Read the Rest →
I wonder how “wide” a photographer should be playing these days. It seems obvious to me that the time has passed that a photographer is merely required to make a good image. Input has expanded from photography to video, internet, graphic design, writing,… Output has grown from just “a book” to a smart mix of different things that make up a whole experience (book, magazine, video, multimedia, website, gallery, exhibition, …) … and all of it seems to be crucially important. To be able to “widen your output” as a... Read the Rest →
