This book surveys the major innovative figures in recent Japanese photography and reports on the most significant work being done by younger photographers in Japan today. Within the past twenty-five years the character of Japanese photography has changed radically, and its former dependence on the patterns and attitudes of the traditional Japanese media has been replaced by a sometimes harshly realistic objectivity. At the root of this change was a desire to find ways in which photography could deal directly with contemporary experience, rather than with the basically formalistic issues of picture structure. The work produced under this impetus has influenced photographic thinking throughout the world. The volume presents the distinctive work of fifteen photographers.