Setonaikai / Seto Island Sea

Yoichi Midorikawa
Setonaikai / Seto Island Sea

Photographs: Yoichi Midorikawa

Text: Ippei Ito, Yoichi Midorikawa

Publisher: Bijutsu shuppansha

140 + 6 fold-outs pages

Pictures: 60

Year: 1962

Comments: Hardcover under dust jacket and acetate in a cardboard slipcase, 323 x 242 mm. Text in Japanese. Beautifully printed in 3 colors process Ref : Japanese Photobooks, p 68-71 By Ryuichi Kaneko & Ivan Vartanian. Very well preserved ! Rare in that condition!

This photobook was part of an epoch in color photography and color reproduction. A large-format book with gatefolds, Yoichi Midorikawa's Setonakai combines color with monochromatic photography an a sequence of images through a catalog of textures, colors, and shapes.

To create the saturation of the color reproductions, midorikawa used varied filters, montage, and effects such as multiple and extended exposure. While the resulting images do not faithfully reproduce existing color, he mixed reality with his own vision, successfully creating a uniquely expressive world through his unprecedented use of color.

Yoichi Midorikawa was a member of Ginryu-sha , a group created in Tokyo in 1945 for novice and professional photographers by Tadahiko Hayashi where Shoji ueda, Shotaro Akiyama and Kineo Kuwabara were part of this group.