The Country of the Rising Sun - Shinji Otani

The Country of the Rising Sun is the first book of photography from Shinji Otani (b. 1972), and winner of the Unpublished Dummy Award of 2012 from the Unseen photo festival of Amsterdam. "The title refers to the idea that one needs light to make a photograph and it's also a reference to my home country of Japan, where people are really proud to be in 'the country of the rising sun'," Otani said in an interview for Foam magazine #34, which focused on photo book dummies. "But in reality the sun rises in every country – even in Sweden in the wintertime."

Presenting 66 black and white images taken over three trips to Sweden, mostly during winter, the book takes an interesting format which rather dominates the experience of viewing the photos. The book is made from 8 photographs printed to A1 size paper – the images being photographs of Otani's photographs printed and pinned to the wall. Those large sheets of paper are then folded in quarters and bound together to make the book - a relatively common form of bookmaking – yet Otani has intentionally positioned the images in a way that they do not align in an expected manner: some images are cut off, upside-down or side-ways, preventing a linear narrative and forcing the viewer to turn the book every which way while examining it.

limited spectial edition of 15, with an original print (201 x 254 mm) numbered and signed

stock number: NB030