Nobuyoshi Araki

I have always been inspired by Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki I like his rawness, his adversity, his energy; he is one of the renegades of photography. He pushes the boundaries of photographing sex acts and bondage making them a photographic art form.

His way of exhibiting photographs in clusters, telling a story using several different photographs, photographs just mounted straight on to a board with just staples with no borders, instead of the tiresome one photo here, one photo there.

Araki started to take photographs at primary school using his father's camera; he entered many different photography competitions to earn money and won many. He's quite a learned man at his time at Chiba University in Japan; however, his renegade side came out, and he would skip class and watch Japanese and foreign films. He was influenced by neo-realist movies and was also interested in the realistic movement in photography. He felt "...drama exists in most ordinary scenes of life."

In 1963, Araki shot his first film "Children in apartment Blocks.' This film was influenced by the neo-realist films, choosing to use non-film actors and local children. During the filming, he also shot several photographs of children and made a photographic collection called Satchin. 

The film was not a success; however, his Satchin photographic collection won him the first Taiyo prize in 1964.

In 1964 Araki started work at Dentsu advertising agency in Japan, and this is where he met his wife, Yoko. During his time at Dentsu, he ventured into the genre of mail art, which he sent copies of "his private photographic anthology Xerox Photo Album" to ordinary people selected from the Tokyo telephone book. "Photography is all about reproduction."

In 1971 he published "Sentimental Journey" which is a photographic diary of his honeymoon in and out of bed with his wife naked and dressed also close up of her genitalia. 

During his wife's illness in 1990 he photographed her dying, then soon after her death, which sparked controversy between him and another photographer and friend Kishin Shinoyama as he was shocked by real death. 

Araki combined "Sentimental Journey" with his new book Winter Journey published in 1991 which featured his wife dying.

Photographs from Sentimental Journey

Araki's popularity to this day is still as strong as it was back in 1970; he has had significant exhibitions in all major cities of the world and has published over 350 books. You can still see Araki photographing in the Tokyo streets.

Araki last photographic exhibit titled "Men - Naked Face by Araki" was at Omotesando Hills main, Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.

The portraits of male celebrities including Takeshi Kitano, Sadaharu Oh, Yoshio Harada, Tsutomu Yamazaki and Utamaru Katsura to Ryuhei Matsuda, Shota Sometani and Eita, reveal the private faces of each depicted persons. The background of the photos are pure white, to make the observers focus on connecting with the models in the portrait

Here are a couple of photographs which were on display

These are positively sterile compared to his nude and street images. If I had seen these photographs, I would never have thought Araki would have taken them. His photographic style is excessive and controversial to Western eyes. For me, he documents the obscene energy of Tokyo and inhuman emptiness in the sex clubs and entertainment district, crowded streets, buildings and skies.

Renowned for clashing with the authorities, in 1988 police ordered the removal from sale the magazine Shashin Jidai, which featured Araki's photographs; obscenity charges were levelled against the artist during a 1992 exhibition and 1993 saw the arrest of a gallery curator who dared to display Araki's graphic nudes. 

One gets the sense that Araki is a rebel bucking the system. Araki has been working as a photographer since the 1960s and has published over 200 books and exhibited extensively worldwide, including Tokyo, London, and Paris.

This article was originally written 5th April 2015 in Transfigurefigure Photography blog pages.

Click here to visit Araki website