Koji Onaka - My Ektachrome

Koji Onaka
My Ektachrome (Signed)

Published by Kaido Book, 2022
Size: 15.5 x 21.3 cm
64 Pages
Hardcover
Edition of 500 copies.
Available from November 19th for the meet/signing with the artist at the bookstore!

Koji Onaka's "My Ektachrome" came about when the photographer rediscovered a number of his photographs taken throughout Japan between 1996 and 1999. During this rare period, Onaka used positive slide film (Kodak Ektachrome) before adopting color negative film for his work. True to Onaka's style, these photographs—of small-town street corners, family-run shops, blurred animals, alleyways where children play, old shopping centers, and sun-drenched hills and mountains—exude a strange and inescapable sense of nostalgia. But as in his earlier works, it is a warm and productive nostalgia that prompts the viewer to imagine ghost stories for all these personal moments, encounters, and borrowed places.

"In 1996, in my mid-thirties, after publishing DISTANCE, a book of high-contrast black and white photos, I used black and white negative and color positive film for a while. After some time, I encountered color negative film and, naturally, I said goodbye to black and white and positive film. Recently, I rediscovered many positive rolls from that time that I had forgotten about, and I cut out the images that seemed good to me and set them aside for my first review. Now that I couldn't find those previously reviewed shots as the most important ones, I thought that perhaps it was fate. So, to move forward, I copied the remaining photos with a digital camera."
- excerpt from Koji Onaka