I think Kawahara is one of the most interesting artists in Japan today. What he does with his imagery is nothing short of breathtaking. I urge you to buy the book if it is still for sale. His stuff would be best on a huge canvas. He came up to Tokyo earlier this year to present at an art event here.

I've seen this guy's stuff but I dunno.. I guess it doesn't do it for me. I don't know a great many japanese photogs, but I do like the later work of Takashi Homma and just about everything of Rinko Kawauchi's I've seen. There is another guy, who's name I forget now, but he somehow managed to take photos all around Tokyo without a person in sight. I'm not sure if it was done with extreme time lapse or what, but we're talking huge urban landscape shots of normally-bustling areas, but no one is there. Eerie and crazy stuff.

(reaches for bookcase) That would be Masataka Nakano's book Tokyo Nobody. And I have no idea how he achived those shots, besides plenty of sitting around and waiting very early in the morning. Ah man, looking through this is really making me homesick...

Ah, that's the one! Awesome stuff. Something about the colors and of course the emptiness is very nice. It does appear that the stuff was shot around daybreak. There's an interesting light permeating all the shots.

I got an email back from him, an d none left.

I think there is a translation problem in the intro. The work is described as "incredibly sick", and I think this should be changed. If I were the photographer I would be more that a little upset.

Not a translation, Steve. I wrote it. If you couldn't tell what I meant by the context then here.