I picked up the book soon after I finally purchased Robert Frank’s The Americans and Walker Evan’s American Photographs. Amazon’s algorithm saw a trend and kept placing this book in front of me until I caved.
Fortunately, the algorithm did right. I fully enjoyed this snapshot of America in the early 90’s.
Kubota is the most sincere photographer I’ve read. He keeps a respectful distance from his subject, presents them without comment, avoids personal flourishes, and maintains the fourth wall between the photograph and the reader.
I was intrigued by his ability to seem so anonymous within his work. Like the dog who didn’t bark, it takes a while before you notice the fact he worked so carefully to stay out of the frame. His only stylistic device is a tendency to go high, whether a step ladder or on a blimp. Even then, this was noticed largely because he admits to it in the introduction.
At a contextual level, it was also interesting to note how many of these three decade old photos would be considered subpar in today’s world. The aerial night shots of Vegas are completely blurred, something you’d expect of a frame capture from a youtube video. Such aerial shots were possibly magnificent in their time, but such technical and logistical feats have lost their punch in an era where my contractor is producing a weekly high definition drone video of my construction site.
Even so, Kubota’s photographs still hold up on the ground and in the crowd. Maybe the reason they’ve stayed fresh because my nostalgia of these years when America was on the ascendency after the fall of the Soviets.
However, I’d like to think they hold up artistically because he scrupulously avoided forcing a stylistic signature in his work. Asian Americans are often frustrated by our invisibility within larger society. In this case, Kubota used it to his great advantage.
This assessment might be an idiosyncratic preference – Kubota’s out of print books are not overpriced in the secondary market. Even so, I can think of no higher compliment than to mention that I’ve purchased two more of his books, China and Out of the East, this time without the insistent prompting of the algorithm.