SHIN YANAGISAWA 1958–2008 is a 2013 retrospective devoted to the Japanese photographer Shin Yanagisawa. Published by Only Photography, the 144-page hardcover brings together a substantial presentation of his work under the framing of a career-spanning survey. Its bibliographic record also identifies the volume as a work of artistic photography and an exhibition publication, placing it within both photographic history and the institutional context of display.
The book’s defining subject is Yanagisawa’s photographic practice itself: not a single project or narrowly bounded series, but an overview shaped by the retrospective form. That approach matters because it asks the reader to consider the photographer’s work across time, allowing recurring concerns, changes of emphasis, and the relation between individual pictures to emerge through the accumulation of the whole. The book’s subtitle, A Retrospective 1958–2008, establishes this chronological breadth without reducing the work to a simple biographical record.
For serious collectors, the volume deserves attention as a focused international publication on a photographer whose work is here treated through a dedicated monograph rather than an incidental appearance in a broader anthology. The collaboration is also worth noting: Shin Yanagisawa is explicitly credited as photographer, while Roland Angst is listed separately as a contributor, preserving the distinction between the images and the book’s wider production. Published in English, with catalog records also listing Japanese alongside it, the book offers a useful meeting point between Yanagisawa’s Japanese photographic context and an international readership. Its clear retrospective premise, concentrated authorship, and carefully defined bibliographic identity make it a significant reference for collections concerned with postwar Japanese photography and the history of the photobook.
