Gesshoku [Lunar Eclipse].

Wakabayashi Nobuyuki took these photographs between 1955 and 1961, aged 16 to 22, in red light districts in Yokosuka, Tokyo, Okayama, Nakajima, Maganecho, and Yokohama. Using a discreet small camera, he photographed the hidden lives of the women who work there and the men who visit them, without using the viewfinder, giving a similar feel to the later are, bure, boke work of the Provoke photographers or the amateur imagery published in the many Japanese protest books of the 1960s and '70s. These photographs were the subject of Wakabayashi's first exhibition in 1962 but weren't published until he produced the present book, his third publication following Adam & Eve (1970) and Oh! Girls Jumping Out (1971). It was followed by Children in Shimotsui (1972).

First edition; (257 x 181 mm, 10 x 7¼ in); monochrome offset-printed photographs in black and blue; wire-stitched photo-illustrated wrappers, publisher's red printed wraparound band with text in black, nick at lower fold, a fine copy; [64].

The Japanese Photobook 1912-1990 no.38.