Saihoji / Ryoanji (Japanese temple) Ken Domon

*This book is secondhand.

This photobook features the work of Ken Domon, one of Japan's most prominent photographers.

Domon is renowned for his life’s work, Koji Junrei (Pilgrimage to Ancient Temples), which spanned over 40 years of photographing more than a hundred temples across Japan. His influential work also includes Chikuhō no Kodomotachi (Children of Chikuho), Hiroshima (documenting the city 12 years after the atomic bomb and its victims), portraits of novelists and artists, and documentation of the traditional Japanese performing art, Bunraku.

Domon was known for his strong opposition to photographers manipulating facts through staging. As a judge for the monthly photo competition in the magazine Camera, he promoted the clear goals of "absolute, un-staged snap photography" and "direct connection between the camera and the motif." This philosophy sparked the major "Realism Photography Movement" in the Japanese photography world during the 1950s.

This particular volume, published by Bijutsu Shuppan-sha as part of its "Japanese Temples" series, contains photographs Domon took at Saiho-ji Temple and Ryoan-ji Temple in Kyoto. Through his unwavering gaze, readers can appreciate the geometric patterns of the stone paths connecting the grounds to the main hall, the bamboo groves, and the iconic karesansui (dry landscape) rock garden of Ryoan-ji.