Setting Sun - Writings By Japanese Photographers
Paper: "The Provoke Era: Japanese Photography, 1960–1975" Author: Diane Neumaier (Essay in the exhibition catalog of the same name) Summary: This academic paper (often found in the catalog published by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art or Yale University Press) deconstructs the "Setting Sun" mentality as a reaction to the student protests of the 1960s and the "America-juku" (Americanization) of Japan. It explicitly links the gritty, high-contrast black-and-white work of Daido Moriyama to the concept of "erasing the world" to cope with the loss of traditional Japanese identity.
Paper/Book Essay: "The Solitude of Ravens: A Meta-Biography" Author: Tomo Kosuga (Found in the reissue of Karasu / Ravens or academic journals on Japanese photography) Summary: Masahisa Fukase is arguably the ultimate "Setting Sun" photographer. His work Ravens is widely interpreted as a visual elegy for the decline of Japan and the dissolution of his own marriage. Kosuga’s writings explore how Fukase’s dark, oppressive images represent the "end of the day" and the end of the post-war economic miracle, creating a psychological landscape of descent.
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The setting sun—or rakujitsu—is more than a daily astronomical event in Japanese culture; it is a profound philosophical threshold. For Japanese photographers, the transition from day to night serves as a recurring motif that explores the tension between beauty and decay, national identity, and the Buddhist concept of mujō (impermanence).
In the following exploration, we examine the writings and visual philosophies of Japanese photographers who have used the setting sun to define their art. The Philosophy of Mono no Aware
At the heart of "setting sun" imagery in Japanese photography is the concept of mono no aware, a term describing the bittersweet pathos of things. The sun’s descent is the ultimate symbol of this fleetingness.
Photographers like Hiroshi Sugimoto and Daido Moriyama have often written about the quality of light at the end of the day. In his essays, Sugimoto often reflects on the "ancientness" of light. For him, capturing a sunset is not about the calendar date, but about connecting the modern viewer to the same visual experience a human might have had thousands of years ago. His writings suggest that the setting sun is a time-travel device, blurring the lines between past and present. Post-War Shadows and Rebirth
In the mid-20th century, the "setting sun" took on a more literal and political meaning. The term Shayō-zoku (the people of the setting sun), popularized by Osamu Dazai’s literature, referred to the declining aristocracy after World War II.
Photographers of the Provoke era, such as Takuma Nakahira, used the dying light of day to mirror a Japan in flux. Nakahira’s writings often critiqued the "clean" photography of the past. He sought the "grainy, blurry, and out-of-focus" (are-bure-poker) aesthetic. To these photographers, the setting sun wasn't a postcard-perfect moment; it was a period of high contrast and deep shadows that masked the scars of a changing nation. The "Golden Hour" as a Spiritual State
For contemporary photographers like Rinko Kawauchi, the setting sun is viewed through a lens of quiet domesticity and cosmic connection. In her books, she writes about the "shimmering" quality of everyday life.
Kawauchi’s approach to the setting sun is rarely dramatic. Instead, she captures the way a low sun hits a glass of water or the side of a child’s face. Her writings emphasize that the end of the day is a moment of "breathing out"—a release of energy that signals a return to the self. She views the sunset as a bridge between the physical world and the spiritual world. Technical Mastery and Emotional Depth
Japanese photography is renowned for its technical precision, but the writings of its masters emphasize that gear is secondary to "feeling" the light.
Shoji Ueda: Known for his "Ueda-cho" (Ueda style), he frequently used the sand dunes of Tottori as a stage. His writings discuss the silhouette as a tool for abstraction, stripping away the ego of the subject against the backdrop of a sinking sun.
Mika Ninagawa: Conversely, Ninagawa uses the setting sun to amplify color saturation to an almost surreal degree. Her writings describe light as a "liquid" that can be poured over a scene to heighten its emotional frequency. Conclusion: Why the Sunset Persists
The fascination with the setting sun in Japanese photography stems from a cultural comfort with the "end." While Western art often focuses on the "golden" or "heroic" light of the sun, Japanese photographers often focus on the "afterglow"—the zansho.
Their writings teach us that the most beautiful part of the day is not when the sun is at its brightest, but when it is about to disappear, reminding us to appreciate the present moment before it slips into shadow. If you'd like to dive deeper into this topic, I can: setting sun writings by japanese photographers
Provide a reading list of specific photo books by these artists.
Explain the technical settings used to achieve a "Japanese aesthetic" in sunset photography.
Research current exhibitions featuring Japanese landscape photographers.
Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers a seminal anthology edited by Ivan Vartanian , Akihiro Hatanaka, and Yutaka Kanbayashi
. It serves as the first English-language collection of essential texts by Japan's most influential and controversial photographers, spanning from the 1950s to the early 2000s. Goliga Books Core Themes and Structure
The book organizes its selections into thematic chapters that explore concepts specific to Japanese visual culture: Goliga Books The Role of Nostalgia
: Examining how a culture attempts to move past its wartime history. Word and Image
: Demonstrating the vital connection between a photographer’s text and their visual work. Diversity of Form
: Selections range from intimate diary entries and humorous anecdotes to rigorous scholarly treatises and polemical essays. Goliga Books Notable Contributors and Contents
The anthology features writings from over 30 photographers, including: SETTING SUN: Writings by Japanese Photographers
Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers is a landmark anthology published by
in 2005 that provides the first comprehensive English translation of critical texts by Japan's most influential photographers. The collection explores the philosophical and aesthetic shifts in Japanese photography from the 1950s to the early 2000s, moving from postwar realism to the radical "Are-Bure-Boke" (grainy, blurry, out-of-focus) style. Goliga Books Core Themes and Structure
The book is organized into seven thematic sections, each reflecting a specific tension within Japanese visual culture: Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers
Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers is a seminal anthology that provides a rare window into the philosophical and personal motivations of Japan's most influential photographers. Edited by Ivan Vartanian, Akihiro Hatanaka, and Yutaka Kanbayashi, and published by Aperture in 2005, it remains the first major collection of such texts translated into English. Book Overview
The anthology features 30 pieces by 19 photographers, spanning from the 1950s to the early 2000s. Unlike Western traditions where critics often dominate the discourse, Japanese photographers have a robust history of writing their own manifestos, diaries, and technical reflections. The book is organized into seven thematic sections: His work Ravens is widely interpreted as a
Realism: Explores post-war documentation and emotional truth.
Landscapes: Reflections on the changing physical environment of Japan.
Memory and Time: Deeply personal accounts of loss and history.
Media, Photo Log, Man/Woman, and Sentimentalism: Further categories delving into aesthetics and gendered perspectives. Key Contributions & Highlights
Reviewers often praise the book for its raw, "disarmingly intimate" revelations that provide context for famous imagery:
Eikoh Hosoe: Discusses his controversial collaboration with writer Yukio Mishima.
Daido Moriyama & Nobuyoshi Araki: These "giants" of Japanese photography contribute multiple essays, though some reviewers from Japan Camera Hunter suggest the book's true value lies in the lesser-known artists.
Seiichi Furuya: Includes a harrowing account of his wife's suicide, illustrating the profound link between his personal trauma and his work.
Masahisa Fukase: Reflects on his famous Ravens project, describing a period where he "himself had become a raven". Critical Reception
Insightfulness: Readers from Amazon and Goodreads describe it as "grounding" and "poetic," essential for understanding why Japanese photography often feels more visceral or "messy" compared to Western styles.
Format Constraints: A common critique is the "dearth of photographs." Some readers find it frustrating to read companion essays without seeing more of the specific images being discussed.
Availability: As a collector's item, it has become somewhat "elusive," often commanding premium prices on the used market. Writings by Japanese Photographers - Japan Camera Hunter
The Amber Afterglow: The Aesthetics of the Setting Sun in Japanese Photography
In the lexicon of Japanese visual art, few motifs are as evocative or deeply entrenched as the setting sun. While the Land of the Rising Sun defines the national identity through the mythology of beginnings, Japanese photography has long found a more profound, melancholic beauty in the day’s decline. "Setting sun writings"—a poetic framing of the genre—captures a specific strain of Japanese visual culture that favors the transient, the fading, and the warmly desperate glow of twilight.
This aesthetic is not merely about photographing a sunset; it is about capturing the concept of mujo (impermanence) and the bittersweet pang of mono no aware (an empathy toward things). The setting sun—or rakujitsu —is more than a
If Moriyama is the scream and Sugimoto is the silence, Rinko Kawauchi is the whisper. Kawauchi has an almost supernatural ability to find the sacred in the mundane. Her sunsets are small, intimate affairs—reflected in a puddle on the sidewalk, caught in the curve of a glass, filtered through a child’s fingers.
In her seminal book Illuminance, the setting sun is not a sphere; it is a feeling of warmth leaving the skin. She photographs the "afterlight"—the few minutes after the sun dips below the horizon when the world holds its breath.
Kawauchi writes (through her images) that the sunset is a mother tucking the world into bed. There is no tragedy here, only transition. A stray cat stretches in the last warm patch of concrete. A curtain flutters. The day dissolves into a memory. Her work reminds us that a sunset doesn't have to be epic to be eternal.
To understand the Japanese sunset in photography, one must first look at the atomic shadows of 1945. For the generation that came of age during the American occupation, the sun as a national symbol had been weaponized (the Rising Sun flag) and then extinguished.
Photographers like Shomei Tomatsu (1930–2012) rarely shot a clear, beautiful sunset. Instead, his "writings" were about the dust of dusk. In his series Nagasaki (1961), the sun is never fully visible. It appears as a bleached-out glare behind a cracked wall or a reflection in a puddle contaminated with industrial runoff. Tomatsu wrote metaphorically with his camera: the setting sun was a patient dying in the arms of the modern world.
For these early post-war artists, capturing a traditional, majestic sunset was impossible. As Tomatsu once mused in an essay, "The sun no longer belonged to the gods. It belonged to the soot of factories and the scars of the skin." His writings were fragments—a shadow of a wire fence superimposed over a fading light—suggesting that Japan itself was writing a new, humbler mythology.
Today, a new generation of Japanese photographers continues the tradition of "setting sun writings," albeit with digital tools. Artists like Yurie Nagashima and Lieko Shima use the setting sun as a destabilizing force. Nagashima’s self-portraits often cut the sun out of the frame entirely, leaving only the lurid, unnatural glow on her skin—the impression of the sunset without the object.
Lieko Shima, in her series Rasen Kaigan (Spiral Shore), photographs the sun after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. The sun in these images looks wounded, dragging its light across a landscape of debris. She writes a new chapter: the setting sun as a healer, but a hesitant one.
Why do Japanese photographers return to this motif so obsessively? It is embedded in the culture. The Japanese flag itself is the Hinomaru—the circle of the sun.
But unlike Western photography, which often chases the sunset for its "beauty" or "romance," the Japanese gaze leans into the loss. In Buddhism, the setting sun represents mujo (impermanence). All things, including light, must pass.
The great photography critic Koji Taki once argued that the Japanese landscape is "a landscape of resignation." The setting sun is the ultimate symbol of that resignation. It is the acceptance that the beauty of this moment is precisely because it will never come again.
If the Provoke generation screamed at the dusk, the next generation listened to its silence.
Hiroshi Sugimoto (b. 1948) offers the most literal interpretation of "setting sun writings" in his series Seascapes. For decades, Sugimoto has photographed the horizon line where the sky meets the sea, using a large-format camera and extremely long exposures. In images taken across the world—from the Sea of Japan to the English Channel—the setting sun is often a perfect, geometric semi-circle bisected by an infinite line.
Sugimoto’s writings are mathematical. He removes the grit, the people, and the politics. He asks: What does the last light look like to a stone? The answer is a study in minimalism. His sunsets are not sad; they are patient. They remind the viewer that human emotion is a fleeting overlay on a cosmic clockwork. In the Western tradition, a sunset is a performance; for Sugimoto, it is a fact.