What I Am Doing (New Edition)
What I Am Doing brings together the work of Eiko Yamazawa (1899–1995), a pioneering Japanese photographer whose experimental practice has only recently begun to receive wider international attention.
Originally published alongside her first major posthumous retrospective in 2019, this new edition focuses on Yamazawa’s abstract photography from the 1970s and 1980s, while also reproducing her important 1962 photobook Far and Near — offering a fuller view of how her experimental language developed across her career.
Yamazawa first studied photography in the United States in the 1920s and became one of Japan’s first female professional photographers, opening a portrait studio in Osaka in 1931. After retiring in 1960, she turned toward abstraction, experimenting with colour, form, repetition, and the photographic process itself. Her later photographs often turned the camera back onto photography — photographing camera equipment, revisiting earlier works, and questioning what a photograph could be.
The book is structured in reverse chronology, tracing her abstract work back to its origins and placing her practice alongside the American photography she encountered throughout her life. Across 158 plates, it brings together portraits, wartime photographs, abstract works, archival materials, and writings by Yamazawa herself.
For readers interested in Japanese photography, women photographers, experimental and abstract photography, and the history of photography beyond established mainstream narratives, What I Am Doing offers an opportunity to rediscover an important but long-overlooked photographic voice.
Language: English & Japanese
Format: Hardcover | 224 pages | 158 images
Dimensions: 297 x 210mm
Publication Year: 2026 | First Edition
ISBN: 978-4-86541-231-4
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