Zen Foto Gallery is pleased to present Visiting Mister Ueda, Jeremy Stigter’s first solo exhibition with the gallery from December 2nd to 24th. The exhibition will feature a selection of 20 photographs from his first photobook under the same title published by Zen Foto Gallery in July 2021.

“Sometime in the autumn of 1993 I was fortunate to be able to pay a visit to Shoji Ueda, the famous Japanese photographer. Taking the train down from Tokyo I arrived early in the evening in the small town of Yonago, where Mister Ueda lived. Yonago lies in the province of Tottori, an isolated peninsula on the west coast of Japan and is home to the magnificent dunes, the famous Tottori sakyū, that served as the backdrop to so many of Ueda’s
best-known photographs.

The following day I met Mister Ueda at the small photography centre he had set up and run for quite a number of years. I had brought along an introductory letter, in Japanese, with a few questions, and a request to take his picture in the dunes he had made so unforgettable. Happily, Ueda-sensei gracefully consented, and, after a cup of tea and a chat, having already taken the trouble to answer in writing the questions— looking at them now, they appear particularly innocuous — we left by car for the dunes, a friend kindly serving as our driver. And so off we went, into a blustery autumn day.”

― Jeremy Stigter