'Merry House' Photobook

By Dirk Rösler

This book (at the website, click on the image of the book cover to see a slide show of the contents) was not planned to happen. It was created somewhat accidentally, without a concrete result in mind. In spring 2006 I went out with a then-new digital camera and came up with the idea of a flash project, essentially a fancy term for a collection of photographs on a specific topic to be created within a short period of time. Evaluating the appearance and other formal qualities of digital images, I set out to emulate Japanese photography or at least my impression of it—seemingly arbitrary photos of environment and people, high in color saturation, film grain and often out of focus, low in formality and, overall, a highly subjective and personal assessment of the immediate and trivial.

The results somewhat surprised me. Perhaps an overall disrespect towards the photography style I had in mind and the consequent effort to not take the subject matter and even the image-making process itself too seriously helped in producing the imagery involved. Looking at the results as a series of photographs, it appeared that in a particular way the aggregate result was greater than the sum of its parts. Once again, a surprise. The Japanese photobook, a small format book with the images printed in full bleed i.e. without image borders or explanatory captions seemed the natural way forward. The result is what you see here.

While it is perhaps not breaking new ground photographically, the book is an attractive artifact and is pleasant to read through and enjoy the images. At the same time it feels that the shallow mystery of the Japanese photobook has been revealed and it is time to move on.

Photobook, soft cover, 8 x 6 inches, 54 pages, 52 color images.

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(This text was taken from Dirk's Megaperls website, with permission. Dirk's Megaperls Webshop specializes in making Japan-only photographic products available to the rest of the world.)

Comments

[charlie d]

I don't know a darn thing about Japanese photography or what that even means.

I like this kind of stuff, but it seems the artist is just apologizing for making a wonderful and nifty book of post modern images and blaming the Japanese for it! I bet he was much happier with the results than expected. It's hard for an artist and photographer to put him/her self in the shoes of a typical tourist snapping lousy pics on purpose.

Nice one Mike

[einars o]

great guy, he has a good website (and has good deals on 100' of neopan 1600). i really enjoy this style of photography and enjoyed leafing through his book. thanks!

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

I think I'll do this. I have often done so, only not with a set time limit. But I seem to do best by working intense in a short time period, like an hour or two. Might as well make a virtue of my short attention span. :)