Practice Head for Christmas (or How To Buy Yourself a Present and Potentially Make Money Out of It)

A tip for the true photography lovers: I went out and bought myself a book. I dreamt that someone would one day give me this as a present but it never happened. And why? Well the first edition of the book I am talking about - Karasu (in Japanese) or The Solitude of Ravens (in English) by Masahisa Fukase was published in a very small edition and if you manage to stumble upon it (unlikely) you may expect to pay anything from €3000 (around 4380 US dollars) upwards. The second run was done in a small edition too. It's a soft cover and a first english language edition. For that one, the price is anything from €800 upwards (in a good condition). Now, the third (or the second english language) edition has come out in a 1000 copies run. Hard cover in a sleeve. The price is between 100 and 150 US dollars at present and climbing fast as they are almost fully sold out. Get it before it goes. It is truly worth it.

What to expect? The book, a result of Fukase’s travel following the divorce from his wife, resonates strongly with a well-known poem, dealing with the similar grief (the loss of the loved one) and using the same metaphor for it – The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. Both the narrator of Poe’s poem and Fukase, struggle with the conflict of wanting to remember vs. wanting to forget what they have lost. (In Seeing Things, the bird, used to symbolize the photographer is also a metaphor for the conflict between remembering what was photographed, and wanting to forget about its gloomy nature.) It is heartbreakingly beautiful. The grief is palpable. It can make you cry. It's tragic. It's one of the rare photo book masterpieces. Fukase, I believe is in coma since 1992, when he fell down the stairs drunk.

Who should not get it? The people who think that things like sharpness, the depth of field, the 'correct' exposure is a determent of a good photograph. It's not. It's full of dark, grainy, out of focus, blurry photographs and it punches right where it hurts the most.

My tip of the year. Enjoy.