They called me Yukari

The photographs come from the two years or so that Hideka Tonomura spent working as a hostess in Kabukicho, the entertainment district of Shinjuku in Tokyo, where she went by the name Yukari. They show the women, customers and nights around that job. The pictures are shot at very close range, often in dark shadow and warm red tones. They concentrate on skin, touch and physical presence rather than on telling a linear story. Zen Foto Gallery describes the work as physiological and at the same time somewhat comedic, and it quotes the photographer on how people make a living by selling their hearts piece by piece. One critic places the series, made around 2008-2009, as a continuation of her first book, Mama Love (2008). This is a single-photographer monograph with 64 images in 128 pages, square at 285 x 285 mm and in softcover. Zen Foto Gallery published it in 2013 in an edition of 500 copies. The gallery issued a new edition with additional texts and images in 2023.