What's this? Book review of Ken Ohara's photo book.

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Impressions: Depending on how you look at it, you will find this book to be frightening or enlightening. In my case, it was the latter. It is a thick collection of 500 B/W photos of people's faces. As you can see on the book's cover, the face is closely cropped so that you only see the eyes, nose, and mouth. This is how it is for all the 500 faces. It is a monotonous and seemingly never-ending collection of humanity. They are people of all ages and races.

The eyes, nose, and mouth are located at the same position on each page. Their individualism and differences disappear. It shows how people are really the same despite the differences we always see in each other. It also proves that the human face is much more than just the eyes, nose, and mouth.

When this book was first published in 1970, it caused a major stir in Japan's photography circles. It was quite shocking. In 1997, the book was reissued by Taschen in Germany. The original edition now fetches a premium price.

700-5