outdoor photographer making a photo book

He was only 19 years old when his father died suddenly. However harsh the climate, Nobechi grew to appreciate Edmonton and, after moving to Vancouver several years later, found himself longing to return. “It was 40 degrees below zero, the crossover point for both Centigrade and Fahrenheit,” Nobechi says, “a temperature that froze my eyelashes and nostrils walking to school.” The rural landscape also left an impression.

At the time, in Edmonton, “all Asians were considered ‘Oriental people,’” Nobechi recalls. When Nobechi was 11, his family relocated to Edmonton, Alberta, and the culture shock was significant. Suzuki Museum of Zen, Kanazawa’ (2018) | © GEORGE NOBECHI “I tended to sleep with the curtains open,” he recalls, “and somehow the calmness that came from the view over the cityscape of nighttime Tokyo was reassuring.” One of his strongest visual memories, though, is of gazing at Tokyo Tower, then lit with an outline of white lights and some blinking red ones, from his bedroom window. He even recalls having a Contax 35 mm camera, and taking rolls of family shots. He enjoyed a cultured upbringing, with lots of travel and visits to art exhibitions with his maternal grandfather. Nobechi spent his childhood years in Tokyo, the son of a Canadian businessman and Japanese mother who trained in music at the Juilliard School in New York. This duality is not surprising, given Nobechi’s exposures. While the club is not normally accessible to the public, Nobechi has arranged a reservation system to admit people to the gallery.Įven the briefest glance at the photographer’s work will bring up two thoughts: first, his use of wide-angle lenses conjures up a frontier-like vastness, even when the subject is a view through a window, and second, there’s an unflinching focus on rough imperfections and gritty details that seems to tap into Japan’s wabi sabi aesthetic.

This month, he is the subject of an exhibition titled “Eastern Light, Western Wind,” which runs till May 9 at the Tokyo American Club. Aside from numerous awards and solo exhibitions around the world, his work can be found in collections at the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography and the University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography. Nobechi, now 41, is by any measure a successful artist.

Outdoor photographer making a photo book