Snow Land Hiroshi Hamaya

This photo book is by photographer Hiroshi Hamaya, the first Japanese to win the Hasselblad International Photography Award in 1987.

Hamaya's love of photography began when, at age 15, he received a Brownie-format handheld camera as a gift from his father's friend. At age 24, he visited Niigata in winter for his first job as a freelance photographer, and was stunned by the harsh living conditions there, which were vastly different from those he had lived in Tokyo.

After meeting folklorist Shinji Ichikawa, Hamaya gained a folkloric perspective, capturing the lifestyles and landscapes of the snowy country along the Sea of Japan from that perspective through his camera. The two photo books he published, "Snow Country (1956)" and "Back of Japan (1957)," which brought together the results of his work, had a profound impact on the Japanese photography world at the time with their sharp and profound insights into the local climate.

This book is a reprint of "Snow Country (1957)," first published in 1977 as the first issue of the newly launched "Asahi Sonorama Photo Selection Series."

In line with changes to the format and page orientation, the structure and content have been re-edited with Hamaya's consent since the first edition in 1956, and meticulous layouts have been adopted, such as cutting off the top and bottom of the entire spread and arranging multiple images on the same page.

Also present at this editing session was Hasegawa Akira, who would later be involved in editing Masahisa Fukase's Crow. Hasegawa was in charge of the Asahi Sonorama Photo Selection Series and was involved in editing all 27 volumes.