First edition of Shima no Ama by Kusukazu Uraguchi (2024)

First impression

Large format hardcover in new condition.

Pages clean, binding firm

Text in English

About

For centuries, ama - women divers - have fed the Japanese imagination. These free-divers collect abalone, shellfish and seaweed, the sale of which ensures their financial independence within the household. Kusukazu Uraguchi (1922-1988) has been photographing them in the Shima region, along the Pacific coast of Japan, for over thirty years since the mid-1950s. The fruit of extensive research among nearly 40,000 negatives - almost all of them previously unpublished - this remarkable archive of landscapes, portraits and underwater views tells the story of both the daily life and the special place of the ama community within Japanese society.