William Eggleston, Martin Parr, Nan Goldin, Stephen Shore, Ryan McGinley, Terry Richardson and Fujifilm X-Series Cameras

Last week in Omotesando Hills, near Harajuku Station in Tokyo, I saw an exhibition of photographs produced by some quite famous photographers (“heavyweights”) using Fujifilm X-Series cameras.

And the photographers certainly are heavyweights – namely, William Eggleston, Martin Parr, Nan Goldin, Stephen Shore, Ryan McGinley and Terry Richardson.

The exhibition itself, produced by Fujifilm (& some co-sponsors), was called “⎡Photography⎦ Fine Art Photographer x Fujifilm X Series.” It will open in New York at the Aperture Gallery (opening reception tomorrow evening), where it is simply called Photography.

I must admit that I felt somewhat ambivalent about the whole affair as I was travelling into Tokyo. Upon learning of the show, my first thought was “cool!” Later however, I began to feel sceptical. Clearly, there was a marketing element to this whole production, and I started to wonder just how much I would be seeing of “art” and how much would be “images as advertising?”

I could envisage several possibilities. Foremost in my mind was the possibility that it might simply be a cold and cynical ploy from a marketing department.

Happily however, that was not the case. Clearly, all involved are benefiting from this. The photographers (presumably) get access to free equipment (and possibly more), and both sides of the party get exposure. But the whole deal had more of a mutual “this is exciting” feel to it, rather than cold calculation.

I was quite taken by some of the photographs, and the whole day’s adventure was well worth the effort.

So much so, that I want to talk more about the photographs themselves in a separate post soon. Here’s some overview shots of the show (click on them to see larger).

Addendum: See the entry above too, for a gallery with individual photos of each one.

Today’s post done with a little help from

The Red Garland Trio – There will never be another you (short-ish sample only)

Herbie Hancock – Cantaloupe Island 

Motorhead – Keep Us On The Road