Tracks of the City

Shin Yanagisawa
Tracks of the City

Photographs: Shin Yanagisawa

Publisher: Roshin Books

120 pages

Year: 2025

Price: 50 €

Comments: Hardcover, 23,1 x 23,1 cm. 1st edition of 900 copies.

Reissued After 46 Years
Published by roshin books in 2017, untitled was a culmination of Shin Yanagisawa’s travel photography. Now, Tracks of the City returns to print—his first and most iconic photobook, originally published in 1979 by Asahi Sonorama. It captures Tokyo in the 1960s, at the height of the country’s rapid economic growth.
The photographs in this book were taken between 1965 and 1970, during a time when Tokyo was engulfed in a wave of “scrap and build” redevelopment. As old neighborhoods disappeared and new structures rose in their place, Yanagisawa turned his lens toward this transitional moment. Through precise and composed framing, he revealed the evolving forms and atmosphere of the city, without relying on narrative or symbolism.

“Photographs don’t need words”—Yanagisawa remained unwavering in this belief throughout his career. His work was neither part of the Provoke movement nor the so-called Konpora trend. What emerges here is not a category, but a singular vision—one that could only belong to Shin Yanagisawa.
This is truly a landmark of urban photography—one that deserves renewed recognition today.

Shin Yanagisawa
Rokkor, and in 1967 received the Newcomer's Award from the Japan Photo Critics Association. He was active mainly in photography magazines throughout his career. After a trip to Italy in 1993, he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer and retired from photography. He passed away in 2008.