“Until now,To the Villages had been published three times, as differently structured books: as the 1976 To the Villages-special edition of Asahi Camera; as the 1980 book To the Villages by Tankosha Publishing; and as 1970s Nippon by  Toseisha Publishing in 2001. For all these three books, I did the photographic structuring. However, in this edition of To the Villages by only photography,  Roland Angst has himself arranged and chosen the photographs from 350 vintage prints from the time of the photographic shoots. 80 percent of these photographs have never been published before and I felt like seeing To the Villages for the first time again, just after taking the photographs. I am very grateful that he has given the photographs from forty years ago a beautiful new breath.

Since I was a young child I have moved houses repeatedly and therefore don’t have a place that I call hometown. However, I yearned for a home, repeatedly trying to see it in the images inside the photographic developer that gradually rose to the surface under the red lightbulb in the darkroom. The sceneries with people and landscapes that are reflected in the photographs were normal places where normal people lived – they existed everywhere in Japan. However, they have become lost sceneries that hardly exist anymore; only the photographs remain, like lost properties that the era has left behind.“

excerpt from Kazuo Kitai’s preface in our book.