Kyoto 1

信号は赤 (特集・京都①) 

by
中平卓馬╱Takuma Nakahira

In 1973 Nakahira set himself a new rule in Why an Illustrated Botanical Dictionary?: record things clearly in daylight, often in color, and resist turning grain and blur into a style. 

Here the title reads like a working cue: stop first, then gather verifiable fragments—sky, roofs, TV frames, the noise of information—and line them up like entries. This is a magazine exercise in “registration,” published in Asahi Camera, Apr 1974 (Special Feature: Kyoto ①). 

For context: in 1977 he collapsed from acute alcohol poisoning and suffered memory loss; afterward he continued with a more direct color practice. Kyoto ① comes before that turn—an early, concrete realization of the 1973 method.