Kurayami — Light, Darkness, and the Space Between
Kurayami (暗闇, "darkness") is a photobook by Masao Yamamoto and musician Akira Uchida, published by IIKKI as a limited edition of 2000 copies, each hand numbered and hand stamped. It is the first and only edition — no reprint is planned. The book follows the dialogue Yamamoto and Uchida began with Sasanami in September 2020, extending that collaboration into new conceptual territory.
The book is structured in two chapters — Side A and Side B — each moving through Yamamoto's characteristic register: small-scale, hand-altered gelatin silver prints that hold light and shadow with equal attention. Across 56 photographs, the images circle themes of transience, nature, intimacy, and presence without resolving them. Darkness here is not absence but atmosphere — a condition in which things become perceptible rather than disappear. Six metallic and silver pages punctuate the sequence, and the hardcover carries an embossed logo, slot, and circle.
Uchida's music is not incidental to the work. It functions as a coequal voice, composed in direct relation to the images and intended to be heard alongside them. For Kurayami, Uchida collaborated with Tono Tamami on Sho and Kosaka Osho on Sutra — contributions that deepen the sonic dimension of the book. Each copy includes a download code for the music by Akira Uchida, making that dimension directly accessible to every reader.
Kurayami is part of the Photobooks catalogue at Lokator100. Another Yamamoto title, Nusa - Masao Yamamoto, is also available in the shop.
About the Artists
Masao Yamamoto (b. 1957) is a Japanese photographer known for his intimate, small-scale gelatin silver prints, often hand-altered and poetic in character. He began photographing at sixteen and studied painting before committing to photography as his primary practice. His work explores memory, nature, and presence, and has been shown in galleries and museums worldwide, including Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York, Galerie RX in Paris, and HackelBury Fine Art in London. He lives and works in Yatsugatake Nanroku, Yamanashi Prefecture.
Akira Uchida is a Japanese composer and musician. After working as a saxophonist, he trained in piano tuning in 2007 under Satoshi Yoshida, and in 2015 began building a clavichord — a keyboard instrument with origins in the fourteenth century — while studying under Masahiro Adachi. His practice spans sax, piano, clavichord, and instrument-making. He frequently collaborates with visual artists and is a recurring presence in IIKKI's cross-disciplinary catalogue.
