Roadside Lights Season: Winter
DESCRIPTION
“Roadside Lights Seasons: Winter” is a follow-up to Eiji Ohashi’s critically acclaimed photographic series of vending machines along roads throughout Japan. The volume focuses exclusively on scenes taken during winter, with volumes for spring, summer and fall to be released as well.
“The vending machines placed all over the country are a symbolic image of today’s Japan, and their lonely, daily work is reminiscent of the modern lives of us humans. In this sense, my series is a conscious reflection of its era, but it is also an expression of my own personal aesthetic sensibilities,” says Ohashi.
“I believe the sight of these vending machines shining brightly, all alone in the harshness of winter, evokes feelings of compassion and encouragement in us. These bright, glowing characters are mechanical machines, but they also appear strangely human, and the beautiful sceneries that surround them may even provide us a little hope.” －from Eiji Ohashi’s afterword (available in Japanese and English translation)
With its large format and considerable weight, the photobook “Roadside Lights Seasons: Winter” gently recalls the weight and size of the vending machines in Ohashi’s photographs. The leporello-style bookbinding allows the book to spread out into an instantaneous mobile exhibition as well.