Intimate Seasons - Tapa dura

This is a photographic tour of the seasonal landscapes of Japan. The evocative seasonal landscapes of Japan are presented, to show the great contrast and depth of the Japanese countryside. A reference section reproduces each plate in miniature, with an accompanying explanatory caption. A book of photography in which nothing stirs except the current in a stream or waterfall - quiet and peaceful, we see the landscape of the country change.

SHINZO MAEDA was born in the western suburbs of Tokyo in 1922. After working for a general trading company for seventeen years, he became a full-time professional photographer, founding the Tankei photo library in 1967. His personal style of landscape photography won him a number of major awards in his lifetime, including the top prize of the Japan Photographers Association. Before his death in 1998, he published forty-six photo books in Japan, and eight in other countries. AKIRA MAEDA, his eldest son, was born in 1954. From his junior-high-school days on, he accompanied his father on photo shoots, and after graduating from Waseda University he joined the photo library his father had established. He is now a recognized landscape photographer in his own right.