EN / JP

EDITIONS

Hiroshi Yamazaki

HY-01 : HELIOGRAPHY

2012

A4 size, 7 offsets + a title page with text by Yamazaki, a colophon in the black envelope
edition 300
2,000-


NOTES from the photo book "Heliography"

The word for the title of this collection, Heliography (Sun Pictures), is the term which Nicephore Niepce, one of the creators of the daybreak of photography, gave to the photographic technique he himself discovered. In comparison with the trademark-like labeling of Daguerre's daguerreotype and Tallbot's talbottype (or calotype), a frank desire and sensitivity toward the "art of light" seem to be expressed here. I think heliography, as a word, is comparable with the term photography, which is said to have come from the astronomer J. Herschel. Whenever I capture the sun, pure light itself, as subject matter inside a frame, the first thing that comes to my mind is the word "heliography".
The series gathered here was all shot and released in 1978. However I displayed two photographs taken through a long exposure of the sun as early as 1974 at my first individual exhibition entitled "Observation: Observational Ideas" at the Galleria Grafica in Tokyo, These were part of a series on the sea, which included long exposure shots putting the horizon in the center of the title "Observation". My "Heliography" photos first carried titles like "Observation No.8" (at my own exhibit at the Ai Gallery in Tokyo); and my "The Sun is Longing for the Sea", for example, was presented as "Observation No.9" (at a group exhibit at the Designers Space in Tokyo). With the exception of my offering entitled "THE SUN" at the "Japan: A self Portrait" group exhibition at the International Center of Photography in New York City, I continued with that sort of naming until my 1979 exhibition called "Observation No.10" at the Konishi Roku Photo Gallery in Tokyo. However after that, I have been presenting my "photos of the sun" under the title "Heliography".
Now that I have adopted Niepce's appealing designation for titling my photographs, I feel I must also maintain the same earnest enthusiasm for photography as my great predecessor had.

October, 1983
by Hiroshi Yamazaki
translated by Lora Sharnoff