Photo Records: Testimonies from Rural Villages

Shinzo Hanabusa's photobook, "Photographic Record: Testimony from a Farming Village," is a documentary photobook that sharply captures Japanese farming villages during Japan's period of rapid economic growth. From 1964, he covered farming villages across the country, vividly depicting the lives of farmers rapidly transforming due to agricultural modernization, and the contradictions and distortions that arose in its wake.

The book contains more than just rural landscapes. The central theme is the problems of agricultural policy and agriculture itself that Japanese society faced around 1970, including changes in the work environment due to mechanization, pesticide spraying, pollution issues, acreage reduction policies, depopulation, the influx of imported agricultural products, and the growing agricultural cooperatives. The images of farmers engaged in fieldwork reveal the fatigue and tension that cannot be described solely by the benefits of modernization.

Hanabusa did not sentimentally portray the desolation of farming villages. Instead, he immersed himself in the現場 (genba, "on-site" or "actual place") and calmly and persistently observed the reality of farmers in the midst of change. Underlying this was a strong awareness of the problems of what postwar Japanese economic growth had discarded.

Published by Asahi Shimbunsha in 1971. Winner of the Japan Congress of Journalists Encouragement Award. A book that records the landscape of Japanese farming villages, which is now being lost.

[Title] Photographic Record: Testimony from a Farming Village Testimony by the Farmers
[Publisher] Asahi Shimbunsha
[Publication Date] July 20, 1971
[Page Count] 248 pages
[Size] Approx. 182*259*15mm / 590g
[Format] Softcover
[Language] Japanese
[Title Reading] SHASHIN KIROKU NOSON KARA NO SHOGEN
[Author/Editor] Shinzo Hanabusa/Authored, Tatsuo Midoro/Text
[Printing] Kyodo Printing/Printing and Binding
[ISBN] 0036253895-0042
[Condition] Used 【4】Good to Fair (Cover: shrinkage, minor tears; Body: tanning, spine corners damaged, minor stains on edges)
[Accessories] Cover, obi
[Included in] The Japanese Photobook 1912–1990
[Related Exhibition] 1969 "Rural Report"

Shinzo Hanabusa (1936-)

Born in Chiba Prefecture in 1936. Photographer.
Graduated from Tokyo College of Photography. Known as a documentary photographer who continuously recorded Japanese society after the period of rapid economic growth through rural issues and changes in local communities.

In 1965, he received the Japan Photo Critics Association Newcomer's Award for his solo exhibition "The Blind – Their Closed Society" and for "Rural Electronic Industry" published in Asahi Camera. In 1971, he received the Japan Congress of Journalists Encouragement Award for his photobook "Testimony from a Farming Village." In 1982, he received the 7th Ina Nobuo Award for the "Shisaku Kuwabara and Shinzo Hanabusa Documentary Duo Exhibition," and in 1983, he received the Bologna International Children's Book Fair Graphic Award for his photo picture book "Mizu (Water)."

Since 1992, he has continuously covered the ancient water towns of Shanghai and the Jiangnan region of China, documenting the rapidly changing townscapes and the memories of people's lives under the "Reform and Opening Up" policy.

His major photobooks include "Testimony from a Farming Village" (1971), "What Happened to Japanese Farming Villages" (1989), "The Era of Dedication" (1990), "Shanghai Hojobashi Monogatari" (2001), and "Under the Shanghai Sky" (2006). His works are held in collections such as the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Kawasaki City Museum, and Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts.
Honorary member of the Japan Professional Photographers Society.

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