Manabu Miyazaki: The Pencil of Nature (Japanese and English Edition)
Book Details
Author(s)Manabu Miyazaki
PublisherRam Publications
ISBN / ASIN4904257162
ISBN-139784904257166
AvailabilityUsually ships in 24 hours
Sales Rank3,073,789
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description
A must-have for all lovers of classic nature photography. Just as French scientist Etienne-Jules Marey
first invented a photographic gun to shoot images of flying birds in rapid sequence, so too have many
other photographers drawn analogies between hunting and shooting a camera. The title takes its name
from a publication by the British photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot (1800 1877). In the
original Pencil of Nature, widely considered the first photo book, Talbot referred to photography as
a way of taking portraits that are self- drawn in light. For Manabu Miyazaki, known in his native Japan
as the photojournalist of the natural world, images of uncannily humanistic animals act as mirrors of
a contemporary society grown distant from nature.
In Miyazaki s case, however, it is the animals themselves who do the shooting. Unmanned cameras,
equipped with infrared sensors, shine a spotlight on wild animals hidden by the veil of the forest when
animals trip a sensor, they trigger the camera lens, resulting in breathtaking, unstaged shots. Miyazaki s
unusual photographic equipment, documented in a fascinating photographic index, is an assemblage
of various everyday items and parts what Claude Lévi-Strauss called a bricolage. Examples include
a waterproof strobe encased in PVC piping, a camera with a homemade electrical coil to prevent the
fogging of the lens, and a waterproof cover for an infrared sensor made from a Tupperware container.
This publication accompanies the Izu Photo Museum s remarkable 40-year retrospective of Miyazaki s
work. The book encompasses the artist s major series, beginning with Animal Trails and including Eagles
and Hawks, Ural Owls, Death in Nature, Animal Apocalypse and Persimmon Tree. With an introduction
and artist interview by essayist Masashi Kohara.
first invented a photographic gun to shoot images of flying birds in rapid sequence, so too have many
other photographers drawn analogies between hunting and shooting a camera. The title takes its name
from a publication by the British photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot (1800 1877). In the
original Pencil of Nature, widely considered the first photo book, Talbot referred to photography as
a way of taking portraits that are self- drawn in light. For Manabu Miyazaki, known in his native Japan
as the photojournalist of the natural world, images of uncannily humanistic animals act as mirrors of
a contemporary society grown distant from nature.
In Miyazaki s case, however, it is the animals themselves who do the shooting. Unmanned cameras,
equipped with infrared sensors, shine a spotlight on wild animals hidden by the veil of the forest when
animals trip a sensor, they trigger the camera lens, resulting in breathtaking, unstaged shots. Miyazaki s
unusual photographic equipment, documented in a fascinating photographic index, is an assemblage
of various everyday items and parts what Claude Lévi-Strauss called a bricolage. Examples include
a waterproof strobe encased in PVC piping, a camera with a homemade electrical coil to prevent the
fogging of the lens, and a waterproof cover for an infrared sensor made from a Tupperware container.
This publication accompanies the Izu Photo Museum s remarkable 40-year retrospective of Miyazaki s
work. The book encompasses the artist s major series, beginning with Animal Trails and including Eagles
and Hawks, Ural Owls, Death in Nature, Animal Apocalypse and Persimmon Tree. With an introduction
and artist interview by essayist Masashi Kohara.
