Symphony – mushrooms from the forest: Hardcover Photobook by Takashi Homma
Symphony - mushrooms from the forest is a hardcover photobook by Takashi Homma, published by Case Publishing in 2019. The project is built around a precise premise: mushrooms collected from landscapes marked by radioactive contamination, photographed as specimens and arranged with the care of a scientific catalogue. The result is a book that holds its subject at a measured distance while keeping the weight of that subject fully present.
Each mushroom is isolated against a white background. The presentation is clinical — no staging, no atmosphere, no editorial pressure. The sequencing reads like an inventory, which is part of the logic. The images accumulate quietly, and that accumulation carries the argument.
Homma gathered specimens across four sites: Scandinavia, Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Stony Point. Between the specimen plates, photographs of forests and incidental travel views interrupt the sequence. These pauses return the collection to its source — the actual terrain, the actual forest, the conditions under which these things were found.
Symphony - mushrooms from the forest was shortlisted for the 2020 Paris Photo – Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards. It was issued as a limited edition of 300 copies. The format — 334 × 265 mm, 296 pages — is designed for sustained attention, not quick handling. This is a title within the broader Photobooks category that rewards slow reading.
Condition
Unread. Minor cosmetic wear only: small dent on the back edge of the case and faint surface traces on the front board. Interior is clean. See defect photos.
Also available: Symphony - mushrooms from the forest (Softcover).
About the Author
Takashi Homma (b. 1962, Tokyo) is one of Japan's most prominent contemporary photographers. His practice is defined by a minimal and conceptual approach — he works with restraint, allowing subject matter and sequencing to carry meaning rather than expressive technique. His work addresses urban life, nature, and the act of perception itself.
Homma's photographs are held in major institutional collections including MoMA (New York) and the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. He represented Japan at the Venice Biennale and has published numerous books, among them Tokyo Suburbia and Trails. In Symphony - mushrooms from the forest, he treats the forest as a maintained habitat and the mushroom as a measured indicator — cool in presentation, charged in implication.
Browse all available titles by Takashi Homma at Lokator100.
