Tibet – Shinya Arimoto Photobook (Zen Foto Gallery)
Tibet is the expanded edition of Shinya Arimoto's out-of-print debut, Portrait of Tibet (1999), extended with previously unpublished photographs and published by Zen Foto Gallery as a limited hardcover of 1,000 copies.
About the Book
In his twenties, Arimoto travelled through the wider Tibetan cultural region, working across parts of China, India, and Nepal. The 118 monochrome photographs that make up Tibet document nomads, pilgrims, and city residents encountered over the course of that extended stay. The sequence moves between close portraits, village scenes, and open landscapes without imposing a fixed hierarchy among them.
The work records everyday life at a moment of imminent social and economic change. Arimoto's approach is direct and observational — sustained proximity rather than dramatic intervention. This black-and-white documentary photobook holds its ground between the intimate and the territorial, between individual faces and the wider conditions shaping them.
This edition expands the original Portrait of Tibet with images not included in the 1999 publication, making it the most complete presentation of the project to date.
Ordering and Dispatch
Condition details and edition specifics for this copy are documented on the product page in accordance with Lokator100's standard practice. Orders are dispatched from Germany with tracking and careful packaging.
Further titles in black-and-white documentary and Japanese photography are available in the Photobooks collection.
About the Author
Shinya Arimoto was born in Osaka in 1971. After graduating from Visual Arts Osaka in 1994, he began working across Asia. His early series in Tibet earned him the 35th Taiyo Award in 1998 for Portrait of Tibet, establishing his standing within Japanese photography before his debut had reached a wide audience.
In 2008 Arimoto founded Totem Pole Photo Gallery in Tokyo, an artist-run space that has anchored his ongoing ariphoto selection series and a broader programme of independent photography. His later books — including work centred on Tokyo — brought him international exhibition activity across Japan, Europe, and China. He received the Tadahiko Hayashi Award and the Photographic Society of Japan Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. Tibet remains a foundational work that traces the origins of his photographic language.
