Titus Boeder

On 13 January 1958, the grotesquely disfigured body of a man was discovered near Lake Sembako in Japan. Two investigators from Tokyo came to help the local police in resolving what at first appeared to be a banal case, but which soon proved to be something more complicated. For the first time, a photographer was authorized to accompany the police to document the investigation. Press photographer Watabe Yukichi (1924–1993) followed the inspectors as they questioned witnesses (workers in a show more tannery factory, local police officers) and pounded the streets of the most insalubrious neighborhoods in Tokyo--its bars, bridges, alleyways and hospitals--in search of the killer. Like the haunted film stills of a newly discovered noir classic, Watabe’s images record much more than simply a police investigation, and reveal a Tokyo of the 1950s in a way that has rarely been depicted.

[Cited in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, Volume III. (London and New York: Phaidon, 2014)] show less