Subway Love – Nobuyoshi Araki

Nobuyoshi Araki, known primarily for his photography that blends eroticism and bondage, is one of Japan’s leading photographers.

For a period of almost ten years, from 1963 until 1972, the young Nobuyoshi Araki obsessively photographed fellow passengers during his daily trips to and from work on the Tokyo subway. Yawning businessmen, women dozing with their legs splayed, kids who guessed what he was up to and mugged for the camera – Araki captured them all on film and without using a viewfinder.

Now, over thirty years later, Subway Love brings back to life the “prisoners” crammed into their subway cars. It also includes an interview with Araki explaining what he regards as the essence of documentary – “to gaze unflinchingly at a thing for a long time.”

About the Artist


Nobuyoshi Araki was born in Tokyo, 1940. He studied film and photography at Chiba University between 1959 to 1963. Upon graduation, he worked at the advertising agency Dentsu and met his future wife Yoko Aoki. As one of the most prolific living photographer, he has made over 500 publications. Some of the most notable publications, Xeroxed Photo Album 1–25, Sentimental Journey, Tokyo Lucky Hole, and Benjo are included in The Photobook: A History Volume edited by Badger and Parr.
Araki is known primarily for his photography that blends eroticism and bondage, as well as his diaristic approach of I-photography best represented by Sentimental Journey, an intimate and honest record of his honeymoon trip with his wife. With plain, explicit honesty, his works often stand on the edge between art and pornography, drawing controversial questions on the relationship between photographer and models. In his lifetime, he has received several awards and put up retrospectives, including the Higashikawa Prize, Austrian Decoration for Science and Art, and a major exhibition titled ‘Eros, Life, and Death: The Photography of Japan’s Nobuyoshi Araki’ at Musée Guimet, Paris.

More info on the IBC Publishing website.