Yoko by Masahisa Fukase

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Masahisa Fukase’s Yoko, first published in 1978, remains one of the most intimate and unsettling works in Japanese photography. At its heart is Yoko Miyoshi—Fukase’s wife, muse, and perhaps a mirror—captured in moments that seem to hover between affection and estrangement. Through his lens, she becomes both subject and specter, caught in a web of glances and silences that hint at the complexity of their bond.

Described by some as a kind of sorcerer, Fukase used his camera to reach beyond appearances, conjuring images that feel more like fragments of dreams or memories than simple portraits. Yet, looking at Yoko, one cannot help but wonder: who is really being seen? The woman before the lens, or the man behind it—projecting his own longing, fear, and solitude? What does it mean to repeatedly photograph someone you love, and what remains when only the images are left?

Now, nearly five decades later, Yoko returns in a new edition, overseen by the Masahisa Fukase Archives and supported by Yoko herself. Alongside the original photographs and texts, this reprint brings new reflections, including an essay by Masako Toda and Yoko’s own words revisiting the work. With a renewed design, the book invites us to look again—more slowly—at the fragility of human connection as it unfolds in these pages.

To enter Yoko is to step into an unresolved space—where love, pain, and distance overlap. It is less a story told than a relationship glimpsed through a fractured lens. Between the tender and the haunting, between Yoko’s gaze and Fukase’s, what lingers is a profound question: What does it mean to truly see another person—and what is left of that vision when love is gone?