Photographs

While renovating his late grandparents’ house, Japanese photographer Yoshiyuki Okuyama discovered around a hundred family photo albums. Inside were photographs of his grandparents, parents, and relatives, people he had always known through their place within his family, but who had once lived their own lives, with their own histories. This discovery became the starting point for Photographs. Okuyama reworked these found photographs by covering the figures with luminous fields of light. The people remain recognisable as silhouettes, but their individual identities begin to disappear. What was once a deeply personal family archive is transformed into something more open and universal, a meditation on memory, inheritance, and the passage of generations. The light gives the photographs an almost otherworldly quality. Yet rather than feeling dark or mournful, they carry a sense of wonder: as though these old family photographs have been given a new form of life. For readers interested in photobooks, found photography, family archives, memory, and contemporary approaches to photographic image-making, Photographs offers a thoughtful exploration of how personal history can be transformed into something that speaks beyond one family. Language: English & Japanese Format: Hardcover | 106 pages Dimensions: 300 x 256mm Publication Year: 2026 | First Edition ISBN: 978-4-86541-222-2