Kohei Yoshiyuki - The Park

“Taken in Tokyo’s Shinjuku, Yoyogi and Aoyama parks during the 1970s, Yoshiyuki used a 35mm camera, infrared film and flash to document the people who gathered there at night for clandestine trysts, as well as the many spectators lurking in the bushes who watched—and sometimes participated in—these couplings.

With their raw, snapshot-like quality, these images not only uncover the hidden sexual exploits of their subjects but also serve as a chronicle of a Japan we rarely see; as Martin Parr wrote, The Park is ‘a brilliant piece of social documentation, capturing perfectly the loneliness, sadness and desperation that so often accompany sexual or human relationships in a metropolis like Tokyo.’”

I just love black and white photographs.