Ishiuchi Miyako photographs abandoned buildings. She photographs scars on human skin. She photographs old Kimono fabric. She photographs lipstick. She photographs her own water-damaged prints.
But there's something that connects all her photography. Something that makes it unmistakably hers. It's not what she's photographing; it's how she photographs. She has an eye for how time leaves marks on things. With how worn objects tell stories through their texture and decay.
The key to understanding her work is this: she isn't photographing things. She's photographing how things show their age. How surfaces record what's happened to them.
A lipstick isn't interesting because Frida Kahlo owned it; it's interesting because you can see the scratches and the wear on it. The marks tell you it was used. That's what Ishiuchi is after.
Showing evidence of life
Her Frida series, for instance, catalogs the famous Mexican artist's possessions. But Ishiuchi doesn't just document them. She photographs each object to show its material history. The scratches. The fading. The discolouration.
These aren't precious objects being reverently displayed. They're evidence. They show that someone lived with them, used them, wore them out.
The Scars series works the same way. Ishiuchi photographs scars on human skin. But these aren't pictures of people. They're close-ups of skin itself, where you can see the texture of scar tissue. The body becomes a landscape. You're not looking at a person; you're looking at how time and injury have marked a surface.
It's the polar opposite of standard portrait photography, because the person has disappeared. What's left is just the physical record.
Endless Night, meanwhile, photographs abandoned buildings in Yokosuka's old red light district. You see peeling paint, weathered wood, layers of graffiti.
The buildings could be interesting as documents of a particular place and its history – but Miyako isn't interested in that narrative. She's interested in the surfaces; in what the decay tells you about time passing. The buildings are compelling to her, because their materials have absorbed decades of use and neglect.
A different take on documentary
Most documentary photography relies on the subject being interesting. The story is all-important; the moments significant. Miyako, though, is doing something different here.
Subtly, she's committing to one visual principle – showing how surfaces record time – and then applying it to whatever lies in front of her. The principle is what matters, not the subject itself.
She's been doing this since the 1970s, in a Japanese photography scene that was mostly dominated by men. Her focus on texture, decay and how materials show their age has influenced photographers of all stripes. Yet she's not as well known outside Japan as she should be.
The new book, Ishiuchi Miyako: Traces, brings together 50 years of work. It includes her most famous series, alongside lesser-known projects and unpublished photographs. She's also written new text for the book, so you can hear directly about how she thinks and what she's looking for.
For photographers trying to develop their own recognisable style, here's my big takeaway. You don't need to keep photographing the same things; you need to keep seeing the same way. In other words, pick a visual principle and stick to it, even when you're photographing completely different subjects. That's how you build a body of work that's unmistakably yours.
Ishiuchi Miyako: Traces will be published by Thames & Hudson on June 16 in the US and on June 25 in the UK, priced $65 / £50 / AU$110.
