Encounter/A supplement to Dear Old Days

你好小朋友别册 - 遇見 Encounter/A supplement to Dear Old Days Following Ryoji Akiyama’s Dear Old Days trilogy, published between 2019 and 2021, Encounter brings together 49 previously unpublished photographs made in China during the 1980s. Unlike the earlier books, many of the children in Encounter look directly into Akiyama’s camera. These moments of eye contact reveal something more intimate: the brief connection between a photographer and the people he encountered, captured across a very different China. The idea of encounter continues beyond the photographs. Following the 2019 reprint of Dear Old Days, a Chinese media campaign helped reunite Akiyama with some of the children he had photographed decades earlier — now grown adults. The project also brought him back together with the people who had guided him through China in the 1980s, including members of the China Photographers’ Association. Their stories and interviews are included alongside a contribution from Akiyama’s daughter, Miyako. In this sense, Encounter is not simply another collection of photographs. It is a reflection on the relationships that photographs can create and preserve long after the moment itself has passed. For readers interested in Japanese photography, documentary photography, photobooks, portraiture, and the relationship between photography and human connection, Encounter offers a moving continuation of Akiyama’s long-term exploration of childhood, memory, and time. +++ Language: Chinese & Japanese Format: Softcover | 100 pages Dimensions: 178 x 250mm | 328g Publication Year: First Edition | 2023 ISBN: 978-4-909787-07-1