Mass Observer » coma http://www.massobserver.com Eyes wide open Wed, 23 Jun 2010 22:55:16 +0000 en hourly 1 Masahisa Fukase’s The Solitude of Ravens http://www.massobserver.com/2009/03/masahisa-fukases-the-solitude-of-ravens/ http://www.massobserver.com/2009/03/masahisa-fukases-the-solitude-of-ravens/#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:06:38 +0000 Jay http://www.massobserver.com/?p=179 ravens-book-pageThe Art of Memory has a beautiful post, Weaving the feathers of a blackbird with breath and strings, featuring images from Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase's (b. 1934) 1970s book, The Solitude of Ravens. I've put together a small composite of the photos that TAoM has posted -- click on it to see them individually and larger...]]> The Art of Memory has a beautiful post, Weaving the feathers of a blackbird with breath and strings, featuring images from Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase’s (b. 1934) 1970s book, The Solitude of Ravens. I’ve put together a small composite of the photos that TAoM has posted — click on it to see them individually and larger:

Images from Masahisa Fukase's The Solitude of Ravens

Images from Masahisa Fukase's The Solitude of Ravens

The Solitude of Ravens sadly foreshadows the photographer’s own deep solitude to come, as Wikipedia explains:

His greatest and last photobook was “Raven”. Shot in Hokkaido in 1976 in the wake of his divorce, the gloomy and emotional photos are a sharp contrast to his earlier works. The enormous renown won by their release in 1986 then the American release (“The Solitude of the Raven”) in 1991 was short lived as he fell down a flight of stairs while intoxicated and into a coma which he remains in today.

The Photo Book Guide review of The Solitude of Ravens tells Fukase’s haunting story in more detail, and includes some other brilliant photos, such as this gem:

A page from The Solitude of Ravens

A page from The Solitude of Ravens, by Masahisa Fukase

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