Hot Days in Camp Hansen

Edition : First / Okinawa / Self Published / A-Man Shuppen / 1982 / Softcover. / VG+ / VG+
Small 4to, 164pp (minus 6pp). Printed wraps in dustwrap as issued. Numerous Black & White plates. Text in Japanese. After printing, some of Ishikawa’s friends felt uneasy about their portrayal in the book, so Ishikawa removed the pages before selling it- as called for pages 7-8 and 57-60 have been removed.

Incredible book by Ishikawa of her friends, aquaintances and lovers in Kin town Okinawa, shot between 1975 and 1977. Okinawa has one of the largest US military bases overseas, where at the time Ishikawa worked. The images she shot were primarily in ‘coloured only’ establishments- Okinawan bars being racially segregated at the time, and capture many of her friends, who worked as hostesses, along with african american GI’s. With texts by Araki, Tokuda Yoko and Shomei Tomatsu, of whom Ishikawa was a former student. Araki said of Ishikawa’s work that she managed ‘to capture ‘love’ in a way that is truly alive: ‘this is life, this is truly a philosophy of life’.

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