Eiji Ohashi's Winter Landscapes with Vending Machines. (Cover: Mount Fuji)
 
Roadside Light Stations: Winter is a continuation of Eiji Ohashi's acclaimed photographic series on vending machines along Japan's highways. This volume focuses exclusively on scenes taken during winter, with subsequent volumes for spring, summer, and autumn to follow.
 
"The vending machines scattered throughout the country are a symbolic image of contemporary Japan, and their solitary, everyday work is reminiscent of our modern lives. In this sense, my series is a conscious reflection of its time, but it is also an expression of my own aesthetic sensibilities," says Ohashi.
 
"I believe that the sight of these vending machines glowing brightly, alone in the harshness of winter, evokes feelings of compassion and encouragement." These bright, gleaming figures are mechanical machines, but they also seem strangely human, and the beautiful landscapes that surround them may even give us a little hope.
 
With its large format and considerable weight, the photobook “Roadside Lights Seasons: Winter” subtly evokes the weight and size of vending machines in Ohashi’s photographs. The leporello binding allows the book to be unfolded for an instant, mobile display as well.