Peeping Toms

Carmine Starnino March 4, 2010

During the seventies, Kohei Yoshiyuki stalked Tokyo parks at night with a 35mm, infrared film and flash to take pictures of copulating couples and, sometimes, the “peepers” who watched them. The photographs were first shown in 1979, at Komai Gallery, Tokyo and have now been collected in a book called The Park.

Before taking those pictures,” says Kohei Yoshiyuki, “I visited the parks for about six months without shooting them. I behaved like I had the same interest as the voyeurs, but I was equipped with a small camera. My intention was to capture what happened in the parks, so I was not a real ‘voyeur’ like them. But I think, in a way, the act of taking photographs itself is voyeuristic somehow. So I may be a voyeur, because I am a photographer. The couples were not aware of the voyeurs in most cases.”

Winter

ISSUE 42 Winter 2011

online content:

also in this issue:

  • Getting Plowed

    by Selena Ross In this exclusive investigative report from Montreal, Maisonneuve exposes the bid-rigging, violence and sabotage at the heart of an unlikely racket: snow removal.
  • In the House of the Lord

    by Andrea Bennett The Jackson Avenue Housing Co-operative and the religious battle raging in one of Canada's poorest neighbourhoods.
  • After Jack

    by Nick Taylor-Vaisey Last May, Jack Layton led the NDP to the greatest victory in party history. Now that he's gone, will the party be able to maintain its momentum?
  • [see full issue contents]