What's this? Book review of Hiroshi Sugimoto's photo book.

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Impressions: Sugimoto's best-known series called Dioramas, Theaters, and Seascapes are included in this book. The images, all B/W, are shown in several sections:

Wax Museums I
Images of celebrity wax figures like Mae West, Valentino, world leaders, and the Pope from the Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park, California and Madame Tussaud's in London, England.

Interior Theaters
Interior shots of classic movie theaters in the US with the movie screen looking bright white due to the long exposures taken while a movie was shown.

Dioramas
Dioramas of wildlife and prehistoric landscapes taken from museums of natural history. Since the images are in B/W, they look much more realistic than if they were in color which would show artificial-looking colors. This series was started in 1976 in the American Museum of Natural History.

Drive-In Theaters
Long exposures of movie screens at drive-in theaters in California.

Day Seascapes
Just a series of sky-meets-ocean horizon shots overlooking various oceans like the Sea of Okhotsk in Hokkaido, the Indian Ocean from Bali, and the English Channel. Each picture are split into two images, one of the ocean and the other of the sky.

Night Seascapes
Same as Day Seascapes except that they were taken at night with the horizon barely visible. Long exposures were used.

Wax Museums II
More wax figures, but instead of portraits, they are tragic scenes from movies or history.

All the plates are captioned with the place and year, which is nice.

There's also an interesting interview with Sugimoto who reveals the ideas behind his photo themes. All the works are related to time, hence the title "Time Exposed." He uses a large-format 8x10 in. camera and available light.

700-5