KITAJIMA, Keizo. Shashin Tokkyubin Tokyo.

(Tokyo): Paroru-sha, 1980. First edition. Softcover. 26 by 18.5cm. 156 pages. With black-and-white and colour photographs throughout and a folded CAMP poster bound in at front. A raw and energetic portrait of Tokyo’s Shinjuku nightlife and street culture in the late 1970s. Kitajima captures the city’s drinkers, club-goers, punks and street characters in stark, high-contrast black-and-white alongside more understated colour photographs. The seedy side of Tokyo nightlife is juxtaposed with the everyday life and modern architecture of the city, creating a wild, vertiginous portrait of Shinjuku at a pivotal moment in Japanese youth culture. This is a very good copy, little bump to bottom corner, with the first state (black) obi carrying a blurb by Daido Moriyama. A landmark of the post-Provoke generation of Japanese photography, and one of the defining photobooks the Tokyo underground.