During our trip to Paris Foto, so much to take in, I’m glad we made the time to get over to Polka Gallery and catch a show of Toshio Shibatas wonderful images, this time presented as Cibachromes.  A now defunct reversal print process, its hallmarks being supremely glossy, very sharp and saturated images, not far from a lightbox transparency.    Whilst the idea was to preserve the aesthetics of viewing a transparency the prints could often be too saturated and eventually the process ceased to become available.

However the process suited Shibatas work perfectly, its bought a rare quality that echos the careful and perfectly executed images.  Contact prints of the original 5×4″ transparencies were very interesting and successful in the back mounts. Akin to viewing them on a traditional lightbox.

Okawa Village, Kochi Prefecture 2007 © TOSHIO SHIBATA

Nikko City, Tochigi Prefecture 2013 © TOSHIO SHIBATA

Toshio Shibata says “If we take landscape photography for example, they say there is nowhere in the world where people have not visited. Assuming that is true, but knowing every individual has a different approach to taking photographs, something different will emerge in your photos even if you go to places people have been to before, as long as your ideas about that place are different. So you can always find new ways to take photographs, even of the most commonplace things, without necessarily going to places where humans have never set foot. If you regard photography, the medium, as linked to ideas about creative expression, then I think there is no end to the possibilities”

https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/explore/glossary-of-art-terms/cibachrome-print

www.polkamagazine.com/evenement/exposition-cibachromes-de-toshio-shibata/