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The most popular Japanese photographer of our time, Yoshiyuki Okuyama, "BEST BEFORE" 2022


This photo book includes many works that photographer and film director Yoshiyuki Okuyama has created for clients in the 12 years since his debut.


"His humor always touches my heart.

Seek out and cut off the power of light. I respect."

——Kenshi Yonezu



The title of the book "BEST BEFORE" means "before the best".


This seemingly ironic title was paradoxically chosen to attest to the enduring brilliance of the works included in the book.










Since his debut in 2010, Yoshiyuki Okuyama, one of the most popular Japanese photographers of our time, has been actively displaying his works in magazines, publications, and exhibitions, and has won the Photography New Universe Excellence Award and the Kodansha Publishing Culture Award. In recent years, Yoshiyuki Okuyama has directed many popular music videos and TV commercials and is a veritable leader in today's creative world.

"BEST BEFORE" is Okuyama's first client work, focusing on the "client works" he shot while making his works, and compiling his works from his debut to the present 12 years into a book. The works included were all selected by him personally, and there are more than 400 works and more than 500 pages of masterpieces. This book shows the huge influence and unique presence that Okuyama has had on the creative world since his debut.

Yoshiyuki Okuyama's works are always full of personality and power, drawing a clear line between himself and popular advertising photography and commercial images, presenting a unique way of photographic expression. The images are delivered without any superficial uniformity in color and texture, filled with the chaos, power, and innocent enthusiasm of a child’s messy room. Facing the subjects sincerely, carefully establishing relationships with each other, and challenging the limits of creative thinking, what is completed after repeated attempts and failures is a crystal-like group portrait.

From works created using carefully calculated experimental methods such as multiple exposures, emulsion enhancement, slow sync, collage, replication, and exposure, to documentary photographs that use the power of the moment to capture the decisive moment, this style transcends genres and is renewed. Each work can only be completed by Okuyama who meticulously crafts every shot.

Okuyama's work continues to have an impact in a wide range of fields. What exactly is the "Okuyama-ness" that permeates it? With every turn of the page, readers will be attracted by Okuyama's unique and humorous worldview and have an overwhelming visual experience.


 

"Best Before" Okuyama Yoshiyuki 2022

Publisher Seigensha

Retail price 8,800 yen (tax exclude 8,000 yen)

 

Okuyama Yoshiyuki File

1991 Born in Tokyo


Won the 34th New Universe Photography Excellence Award. Won the 47th Kodansha Publishing Culture Photography Award.


The main photo books include "Flowers" (Akaakasha), "As the Call, So the Echo" (Akaakasha), "POCARI SWEAT" (Seigensha), "BACON ICE CREAM" (PARCO Publishing), and "Girl." (PLANCTON), "The City You Live In" (SPACE SHOWER BOOKS), "Los Angeles/San Francisco" (co-published), "The Good Side" (Bethard Publishing), "Ton! Pan!" (M Bookstore), Taiwan version of "BACON ICE CREAM" (original publisher)


The main exhibitions include "As the Call, So the Echo" Gallery 916, "BACON ICE CREAM" PARCO Museum, "The City You Live In" Omotesando Hills Space O, "White Light" Canon Gallery S, "Flowers" PARCO MUSEUM TOKYO, "New Story" Post.

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