Introduction

Profile
Doug Martin

Japan Snapshots
David Green

My Personal Japan
Pam Morgan

Search Into
Eric Tribe

Contextural
Doug Martin

Tokyo, Kyoto, Fukuoka
Chris Jarvie

Ponto-cho
Kim Taylor

Snapshots: Stories of Japan

One of the truisms of modern photography is that each photographer makes images which reflect their own view of the world. Put another way, we photograph to try to show the world what we see.

I have always been fascinated by how others see "our vision" so I took advantage of some friends. A group of martial artists, in our case people who study the sword and stick arts of Japan, spent two weeks in Tokyo, Kyoto and Fukuoka in May of 2009. We certainly did not go to take photographs but of course we had our various chosen image-makers. At the end of the trip we pooled several sets of images together and I asked each traveler to select a story for presentation in 180 magazine.

These stories arise out of a mostly common set of images, taken by several people who were all in the same places at the same time. The various editors were not allowed to see the image selection of their fellows, so that the resulting stories are each a unique vision.

Here then, are seven stories of the same two week event. Enjoy our little Rashomon.

Kim Taylor
editor, 180 magazine