Kobayashi Norio - Japanese Blue

This series, 'Japanese Blue', photographed over more than thirty years from 1991 to 2024, depicts landscapes featuring blue tarpaulin sheets. Although this is the first time the series has been compiled and published as a photobook, it has long been recognized as Kobayashi's signature work. Blue tarps appear in all conditions, from brand new to torn and weathered. The series can be broadly divided into two categories based on the method of photography: film photographs from 1991 to 1995, and digital photographs from 2003 to 2024. In the 1990s, Kobayashi largely adhered to the demands of silver halide film, often using a tripod and carefully framing his subjects vertically and horizontally, so the blue tarps occupy only a small portion of the images. Since the 2000s, high-sensitivity digital photography and smaller cameras have enabled more handheld shooting and closer framing of tarps, increasing the proportion of blue in the images.