Soichi Kiyooka’s Nikko, Tochigi

Soichi Kiyooka, Nikko, Tochigi, January 1971 (19.1994)

The photograph was taken at Nikko, Tochigi, a Japanese tourist town. In the photograph we see what could be called an iceberg, or maybe it is just a rock in the water that has been frozen over. This picture was most likely taken in Lake Chuzeni. Behind the block of ice you can see Mount Nantai creating a frame around the iceberg. The play between the block of ice, which is contained in the frame, and the mountain behind it is very interesting. The scale is such that the iceberg appears to be as large or larger than the mountain. It becomes an optical illusion and it begins to look like a montage for this reason.

This photograph was part of the show Two Views of Japan: The Landscape Photographs of Soichi Kiyooka and Hidekazu Iwase at ICP  in 1994.

—Juana Romero, ICP-Bard 2014