ハロウィンのための6つの必須写真集

If you think that scary movies are the only way to celebrate Halloween, we are here to prove you wrong. Photo books are not only ideal conjurors of myth, fantasy and death, but a fine way to spice up your displays throughout the spooky season. Cosy up with one from our eerie list, which features dolls, cacti and a slaughterhouse. 

Pinku by Joe Lai (lead image)

The world of Joe Lai’s Pinku is one full of intrigue, nostalgia, fright and mystery. As the title suggests, the photographer has taken inspiration from pinku eiga – the notorious sub-genre of erotic Japanese movies from the 1960s that explored lust, violence and sexual taboos – and mixed in the aesthetics from stills of 1970s low budget Japanese horror films. However, instead of mere copy and pasting, Lai’s book thoughtfully reimagines and refreshes these old codes, presenting a head-spinning array of characters and contexts that hint towards stories, but never tell them. The result is an atmospheric and tantalisingly suspenseful book that surprises at every page turn. A shoutout to Lai’s models, who sometimes pull off contortions, and The Exorcist-like backbends which really get you off your seat. 

Jim Sharman’s Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) has a strong claim to being the ultimate Halloween film. The cult comedy-horror is the most successful midnight movie of all time, primarily due to its long tradition of Halloween screenings and audience participation, where amateur shadow-casts act out the film in front of a screen. While the only way to truly experience Rocky is indeed with a bunch of people – and with toilet paper, rice, newspaper, toast and so on – this book is a blast and a half, and offers a definitive guide to watching along. It comes courtesy of the late president of the film’s official fan club, and includes audience call backs, lyrics, fan contributions and ample Halloween costume inspiration, from alien garb to green surgical gowns. You might not have to abide by the Rocky etiquette at home, but it will nevertheless have you howling, hooting and hollering along. “I see you shiver with antici …!”

Slaughter by Masahisa Fukase

The afterlife of Masahisa Fukase is one of photography’s most enthralling, and the uncovering of his early work has been a reminder of his undeniable genius. The subject of Slaughter is Yoko, the photographer’s muse and eventual wife. The setting is a slaughterhouse a stone’s throw from Tokyo Port. Here, in 1963, a black-caped Yoko posed for Fukase in a series of grim, eye-popping set pieces alongside bloody tools, hooks and hose pipes. The results are scary as sin and totally immersive. So much so that you can almost hear the clangs of chains and smell the odour of raw meat which draws in hordes of crows (the same bird that would torment Fukase in his final years). Ultimately, Slaughter is a testament to not only Fukase’s unflinching vision, but to Yoko’s flair and versatility as a model and collaborator.  

Masatoshi Naito, who passed away this year, first visited Tono, Japan in the early 1970s. The land of mischievous water sprites (kappa) and shapeshifting foxes (kitsune), Tono has kindled many rural legends throughout generations, most famously collected in folklorist Yanagita Kunio’s 1910 book. Inspired, Naito explored the sacred region for himself, and began studying its rich history and culture. The resulting book is divided into chapters on The Living (which contains people and landscapes), The Dead (which depicts portraits of the deceased in their homes) and The Gods (which focuses on statues of deities and Buddhas). Naito clearly had a sixth sense for the mystical, for his images are imbued with an otherworldly aura, intensified by the camera’s lightning-bright strobe, which offers glimpses into the darkness of Japan’s psyche and spirit. It’s not the only book by Naito that will give you the Halloween feels: for more, hunt down 1979’s Baba Bakuhatsu (“Grandma Explosion”), which follows the extraordinary female shamans of Tohoku.

The stage in Chris Shaw’s Horizon Icons is the vast Californian desert. But he is not alone. After dark, the surrounding cacti and Yucca trees grow limbs, loom large and hiss at the photographer, who is armed only with camera and flash. Indeed, only a photographer of Shaw’s nocturnal tendencies (he was a night porter in his previous life) could have mustered the nerve to not only seek them out, but channel their primal, animistic immediacy. The landscape in Shaw’s hands is pregnant with dynamism, movement and myth. These phantasmagorical prints bear a startling tactility, and literally jump off the page with tape marks, thumbprints and Shaw’s hand-scrawled titles, which are like shorthand notes from the spirit. The photographer did all his printing in a makeshift darkroom in the bathroom of his rental nearby, and one can imagine him stumbling back at sunrise each morning, off to bring his dreams – or nightmares – to life. This book is best perused by candlelight. 

Putting the “boo” in book is Estelle Hanania’s It’s Alive, which comprises work from her longstanding and still-ongoing collaboration with choreographer Gisèle Vienne. Hanania takes us behind the curtains, introducing Vienne’s creepy as hell, lifesized dolls in snowy landscapes, misty forests and gymnasiums. This is undoubtedly an ambiguous book, but overall, it speaks to the body, the uncanny and what is real or not. Yet that said, it is also one of those books that is best read not with your mind, but your body, because it will, if you let it, send shivers down your spine.

If you think that scary movies are the only way to celebrate Halloween, we are here to prove you wrong. Photo books are not only ideal conjurors of myth, fantasy and death, but a fine way to spice up your displays throughout the spooky season. Cosy up with one from our eerie list, which features dolls, cacti and a slaughterhouse. 

Pinku by Joe Lai (lead image)

The world of Joe Lai’s Pinku is one full of intrigue, nostalgia, fright and mystery. As the title suggests, the photographer has taken inspiration from pinku eiga – the notorious sub-genre of erotic Japanese movies from the 1960s that explored lust, violence and sexual taboos – and mixed in the aesthetics from stills of 1970s low budget Japanese horror films. However, instead of mere copy and pasting, Lai’s book thoughtfully reimagines and refreshes these old codes, presenting a head-spinning array of characters and contexts that hint towards stories, but never tell them. The result is an atmospheric and tantalisingly suspenseful book that surprises at every page turn. A shoutout to Lai’s models, who sometimes pull off contortions, and The Exorcist-like backbends which really get you off your seat. 

Jim Sharman’s Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) has a strong claim to being the ultimate Halloween film. The cult comedy-horror is the most successful midnight movie of all time, primarily due to its long tradition of Halloween screenings and audience participation, where amateur shadow-casts act out the film in front of a screen. While the only way to truly experience Rocky is indeed with a bunch of people – and with toilet paper, rice, newspaper, toast and so on – this book is a blast and a half, and offers a definitive guide to watching along. It comes courtesy of the late president of the film’s official fan club, and includes audience call backs, lyrics, fan contributions and ample Halloween costume inspiration, from alien garb to green surgical gowns. You might not have to abide by the Rocky etiquette at home, but it will nevertheless have you howling, hooting and hollering along. “I see you shiver with antici …!”

Slaughter by Masahisa Fukase

The afterlife of Masahisa Fukase is one of photography’s most enthralling, and the uncovering of his early work has been a reminder of his undeniable genius. The subject of Slaughter is Yoko, the photographer’s muse and eventual wife. The setting is a slaughterhouse a stone’s throw from Tokyo Port. Here, in 1963, a black-caped Yoko posed for Fukase in a series of grim, eye-popping set pieces alongside bloody tools, hooks and hose pipes. The results are scary as sin and totally immersive. So much so that you can almost hear the clangs of chains and smell the odour of raw meat which draws in hordes of crows (the same bird that would torment Fukase in his final years). Ultimately, Slaughter is a testament to not only Fukase’s unflinching vision, but to Yoko’s flair and versatility as a model and collaborator.  

Masatoshi Naito, who passed away this year, first visited Tono, Japan in the early 1970s. The land of mischievous water sprites (kappa) and shapeshifting foxes (kitsune), Tono has kindled many rural legends throughout generations, most famously collected in folklorist Yanagita Kunio’s 1910 book. Inspired, Naito explored the sacred region for himself, and began studying its rich history and culture. The resulting book is divided into chapters on The Living (which contains people and landscapes), The Dead (which depicts portraits of the deceased in their homes) and The Gods (which focuses on statues of deities and Buddhas). Naito clearly had a sixth sense for the mystical, for his images are imbued with an otherworldly aura, intensified by the camera’s lightning-bright strobe, which offers glimpses into the darkness of Japan’s psyche and spirit. It’s not the only book by Naito that will give you the Halloween feels: for more, hunt down 1979’s Baba Bakuhatsu (“Grandma Explosion”), which follows the extraordinary female shamans of Tohoku.

The stage in Chris Shaw’s Horizon Icons is the vast Californian desert. But he is not alone. After dark, the surrounding cacti and Yucca trees grow limbs, loom large and hiss at the photographer, who is armed only with camera and flash. Indeed, only a photographer of Shaw’s nocturnal tendencies (he was a night porter in his previous life) could have mustered the nerve to not only seek them out, but channel their primal, animistic immediacy. The landscape in Shaw’s hands is pregnant with dynamism, movement and myth. These phantasmagorical prints bear a startling tactility, and literally jump off the page with tape marks, thumbprints and Shaw’s hand-scrawled titles, which are like shorthand notes from the spirit. The photographer did all his printing in a makeshift darkroom in the bathroom of his rental nearby, and one can imagine him stumbling back at sunrise each morning, off to bring his dreams – or nightmares – to life. This book is best perused by candlelight. 

Putting the “boo” in book is Estelle Hanania’s It’s Alive, which comprises work from her longstanding and still-ongoing collaboration with choreographer Gisèle Vienne. Hanania takes us behind the curtains, introducing Vienne’s creepy as hell, lifesized dolls in snowy landscapes, misty forests and gymnasiums. This is undoubtedly an ambiguous book, but overall, it speaks to the body, the uncanny and what is real or not. Yet that said, it is also one of those books that is best read not with your mind, but your body, because it will, if you let it, send shivers down your spine.