To accompany the newly published photography book Labyrinths, photographed by my father across 30 years of living in and visiting Japan, I created a soundscape for a 9-minute cinematic video displaying select photographs from the book. The video, meant for in-person viewing, is meant to induce an immersive and almost hypnotic experience as the photographs presented oscillate between a surreal, dreamlike atmosphere and the contemporary landscape of present-day Japan. As described by photographers:

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"Ed Osborn’s photos pull you into a vast city, or is it a dreamscape? - exploring its light and lack thereof, figures real and perhaps imagined, what’s solid and what’s transient, and the seen and the half-seen and the unseen. His photos balance, and sometimes let totter, a seemingly impossible complexity of figures, structures, fragments, vistas, and motion. The photos in Labyrinths have a wonderful delicacy and deliver mystery, insight., and delight, in a flow, filled with shifts and surprises, that you will want to return to again and again."

— Allen Wheatcroft, Photographer

 

"… We who grew up in Tokyo are familiar with sad ghost stories since childhood. ... Edward Osborn’s first photobook “Labyrinths” successfully captures the true essence of Tokyo. ... He sees ghosts in the metro, small izakaya along narrow alleyways, and even in the busy Shibuya Crossing. In Tokyo, those medieval ghosts are living with us, breathing behind us, and murmuring beside us. Edward somehow succeeded in being with them, as though he were a solitary mystic with his camera."

— Yasuhiro Ogawa, Photographer

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The video is designed for in-person viewing, but temporary access to the full video is available with purchase.​​

Read more about the book here: https://www.edwardosborn.com/labyrinths

Purchase the book here: https://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation/ZK710

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See below for excerpts of the video:

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