Somewhere Sometimes in Japan
ハービー・山口 ( Herbie Yamaguchi)

Available to preorder / this title is due to release on January 18, 2025

The city is an endless theater of life without a plot. We spend our days as performers on the stage set of the present time, dressed in the costume of the present.When I was a university student in the 1970s, the student movement took place in the streets of the city, and until 1972, Okinawa was under the rule of the United States. After the demise of Emperor Showa, the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the Noto Peninsula Earthquake, we are standing on the stage today.

Today's stage is filled with us peering into our phones, many foreign tourists, skyscrapers being completed daily, and old houses left behind, all illuminated by the lights. If one could write a script for the stage of the future, everyone would wish to sprinkle the words “peace, equality, happiness and hope.

But, in the past 50-odd years, each moment of time that has appeared and disappeared in front of me with my camera has sometimes been tragic, but at other times it has been so beautiful and lovely that I have always wanted to look at it.But, in the past 50-odd years, each moment of time that has appeared and disappeared in front of me with my camera has sometimes been tragic, but at other times it has been so beautiful and lovely that I have always wanted to look at it. Each scene disappears the moment it appears, and when I think that it will never appear again, it is so fleeting that I wish to preserve it in photographs, at least as a beacon for the future.

w22 x h23 cm
72 Pages
66 Images
Soft cover
Full color Offset
Limited edition of 1000
Published in 2025
ISBN 978-4-911112-16-8

「街は筋書きのない無限に広がる人生劇場だ。私たちは現在という時代の舞台装置の上で、現在という衣装を纏い出演者として日々を過ごしている。
私が大学生だった１９７０年代には学生運動が街で展開され、１９７２年まで沖縄はアメリカの統治下にあった。昭和天皇の崩御、東日本大震災、能登半島地震などを経て、私たちは今日という舞台に立っている。
今日の舞台ではスマホを覗き込む私たち、多くの外国からの観光客、日々完成する高層ビル群、取り残された古い家屋が照明に浮かび上がっている。 将来という舞台の台本を書けるなら誰しもが「平和、平等、幸福・希望」という文言を散りばめたいと願うだろう。
それにしても過去５０余年、カメラを構える私の前に現れては消えていく時代の一瞬一瞬は、時として悲惨なものであったが、
反して時にはずっと見ていたいと思うほど美しく愛おしく目の前に実在していた。いずれの場面も現れた次の瞬間に消え去り、もう二度と現れないと思うと、
それはあまりにも儚く、せめて未来への道標として写真に残しておきたいと願うのである」

w22 x h23 cm
72 ページ
66 イメージ
並製本
カラーオフセット印刷
限定1000部
Published in 2025
ISBN 978-4-911112-16-8