In “Matatabi,” Koji Onaka presents a poetic collection of landscapes captured during his aimless wanderings across the Japanese countryside. The term “Matatabi” refers to a traveler or a wanderer, reflecting Onaka’s signature style of capturing the “unremarkable” and the overlooked beauty of rural towns. His photographs are characterized by a soft, nostalgic color palette (achieved through his own hand-printing process) that evokes a sense of loneliness and longing. The book functions as a visual diary of places that feel stuck in time, moving away from the high-speed urbanity of Tokyo to find the soul of Japan in its quiet streets, abandoned signs, and changing seasons. It is a quintessential example of the “Onaka color” that has influenced contemporary Japanese landscape photography.
