序文 Plorogue 
*English follows Japanese
写真雑誌ASPHALTは本誌で三号目となった。前号はおおむね好評だったようで、さまざまな反響もあった。それに力付けられて今回も解説の筆をとる。
今号でゲストとして来ていただいた桜井永治氏はベテランのドキュメンタリー写真家で無名の人ではない。山梨県に生まれ、重森弘庵が校長をしていた頃の東京総合写真専門学校の出身と言えばそのキャリアがわかる。氏は何より「人が生きぬく姿」に関心を持ち、それを終始テーマにしてきたと語る。本当は船乗りになりたかったんですよ、と言って笑っていたが、今回の写真が貴重なのは１９７０年代の北海道の鉱山労働者や牧畜労働者の姿が記録されていることである。九州に関しては炭鉱の没落期に大きな労働闘争があり、社会問題になっただけでなく、写真においては土門拳らの作品もあって比較的によく知られているが、同様に衰微の道をたどった北海道については記録が少ない。桜井氏は最初は牧場を撮るつもりで行ったそうだが、目に入ってくる別の物にもカメラを向けたという。氏の写真の優れている点は「引き」の良さである。これは映画でも同じで近年のアメリカのアクション（暴力）映画が迫力を出そうとしてやたらアップをするのは下手糞だからで、実は遠景を撮る方が技量がいる。桜井氏の写真のうまさがわかりにくいのは、普通の人が普通に見たように撮っているからで、これは本当はいちばん難しいのである。そのことを掲載作品を見て味わっていただきたい。なお、これらの作品は昨年蒼穹舎ギャラリーで行われた写真展からの抜粋である。いずれ写真集にまとめられることを期待したい。
藤原敦氏の「跡」は前回に続く独特の連作写真だが、実はこの方法論はウジェーヌ・アッジェの方法にきわめて近いのである。仰天する向きもあるかもしれないが、もし２０世紀初頭のパリの風景が美しく見え、２１世紀初頭の東京の風景が醜く見えるとしたら、その人は写真というものを理解していない。写真は何より現実をとらえるものである。私たちが実際にこういう街に住んでいる限り、そこから目をそらすのは逃避にすぎない。ナニじっと見ていると、だんだん美しく見えてきますよ、というのは冗談だが、これらの作品が写真表現のある原点を示していることは理解していただけると思う。
唐仁原信一郎氏の作品は、前回に続いて氏の故郷・立川市を撮ったものだが、今回は人物のスナップを中心にまとめてみた。非常に自然な、見たままの写真というのが長所と言える。ところで、前回、彼の病室での写真を巻末に掲載したところ、疑問の声をだいぶ聞いたが、絵画に自画像があるように、写真にも自写像の伝統はあるのである。近い例をあげると、メイプルソープがHIV（エイズ）で死ぬ直前に撮った自写像がある。手に髑髏撞（サンスクリットならカトヴァーンガ）を持ち死神のように立つその姿はたぶん彼の最高作であろう。私が唐仁原氏の提案に乗ったのは、一度やってみるのも面白いかなと考えたからである。
岡本正史氏の写真は一見文学散歩のようだが、彼は本人が言うように、文学青年と写真青年の中間のような存在である。彼の卒業論文は石川啄木だった。それを写真と文章でやってみたらと勧めたのは私である。私はあくまで写真を日本の総合文化のひとつとしてとらえているので、狭い写真界に閉じこもらず、外に向かって開きたいのだ。それはかつて山岸章二（元カメラ毎日編集長）が試みたことだが、大新聞的に有名人に声をかけるのではなく、私は写真家自身にやらせてみたかった。意図を説明するとこうなる。この雑誌の今後は未定に近いが、写真の世界に多少の新風を吹き込めれば幸いと思っている。
長谷川明
Introduction
This is the 3rd issue of our photo magazine ASPHALT. It seems that the 2nd issue has been quite successful and we have encountered various responses. Here I am writing introduction again encouraged by those feedbacks we received. The guest photographer for this issue is Eiji Sakurai. He is an experienced documentary photographer and he is quite well known. Born in Yamanashi-Prefecture and you can easily imagine how great his career might be as he has graduated from Tokyo College of Photography back in when Koan Shigemori was the principle. He grew interested in "how people survive" and he has been working around this theme through out his career. I always wanted to be a sailor man," he says and he laughs. His works are very important because they have captured the images of mine workers and ranchers in Hokkaido during 1970s. Regarding Kyushu, there had been large scaled strikes during impoverished period of coal mines and it became well-known as a controversial social issues and as for photographs, works by Ken Domon are relatively well-known, however,there are so few recordings of Hokkaido,which followed the same road to ruin. Mr. Sakurai visited Hokkaido to take pictures of ranches, but he has also captured other things that came into his sight.What is so great about his photos is his excellence in "Zooming Out." This is the same in movies, American action (violent) films from recent years tend to "Zoom in" in attempt to stage tremendous impacts,but this is due to nothing other than poor skills. It takes more skills to shoot inlong-distance view. It is difficult to understand how skillful Mr.Sakurai is because the way he takes photos appear to be nothing morethan the way ordinary people take ordinary photos. This is, in fact, the hardest thing to do. I would like to urge all readers to see the photos includedin this publication and experience this. These works are excerpts from photo exhibition held at Sokyusha Gallery last year. I hope these works will eventually take a form of photo book someday.
"Trace" by Mr. Atsushi Fujiwarais a series of unique photos continuing on from the previous issue. His methodology very closely resembles that of Eugene Atget. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but if you think sceneries in Paris back in early 20th century look beautiful and sceneries in Tokyo in early 21st century look ugly, then you have no idea what photography is all about. Photographs capture reality before anything else. As long as we live in cities such as this one, taking our eyes off of its scenery is just another attempt to drift away from what is real. "If you stare long enough,they will start to look more beautiful," while this statement is not true, these works certainly are indicating the origin of photography and its expression.
Works by Mr. Shin-ichiro Tojimbara have captured Tachikawa-City where he is from just like the previous issue, but this time, I have focused on snaps of people. His photos are shot just as he sees and that's the characteristic of his works. By the way, we posted a picture of him in a hospital room on the last page of the previous issue and we heard voices of doubt in response, however, just like painters portray themselves, self-portrait in photography also has a long history. For example, MAPPLETHORPE did a self-portrait right before he died of HIV. He held a khatvanga (long, club-like instrument made of bones) in his hand and he was standing like Grim Reaper. This self-portrait, without a doubt, was one of his best works, if not the best. I decided to go with Mr. Tojimbara's proposal as I thought it would be interesting to try it once.
Photos by Mr. Shohshi Okamoto look like a literature walk at the first glance, but this young man is, just as he claims, addicted to literature just as muchas photography. His graduation thesis was on Takuboku Ishikawa, a poet in Meiji-Period. I recommended him to use both photos and texts. I grasp photography merely as one of the many cultures in Japan, therefore I would like to open up externally rather than keeping everything within the narrow realm of photography. This is something that Shoji Yamagichi (ex-editor in chief of Camera Mainichi) had attempted before. I wanted to see how photographer himself attempts to do this rather than talking to big names openly. That was the intention. The future of this magazine is yet to be seen, but I certainly hope this magazine will bring some new winds to the world of photography.
Akira Hasegawa