uh-mazing.
photography-related post numbero deux:
So. In Japan, they have what are referred to as “Love Hotels.” They are basically pay-by-the-hour, fetish-and-fantasy-themed, amusement-park-esque motels. And this is a thing. That they aparently DO in Japan. For fun. EDIT: It seems that a lot of single adults in Japan usually continue to live with their parents even until they get married, and so these love hotels are quite useful. Anywho, THIS BOOK. IT IS AMAZING. It is by a photographer named Misty Keasler (who I had never heard of before…?) and it basically documents, or exposes if you will, this crazy japanese novelty. And I found it the other day, and fell in love with it (haha… no pun intended). You can look at more pages when you click on the picture.
Look at Wikipedia’s explanation of this phenomenon here.
Here is an awesome blog made by a few couples (back in 2003, so its kinda old) who banded together, wanting to explore the love hotels armed with nothing more than a camera, quarters for the vending machines, and the occasional sexy lingerie.
Evan wrote:
this is so f-ing weird and fascinating! i like that a lot of it is kid-themed. whats up with the space room? sexy? alli, you do so much research and provide excellent suplemental sources for your posts.
Posted on 15-Jul-07 at 2:35 am | Permalink
Katie Wilson wrote:
dude, we received approximately 20 copies of this publication at Harper’s while I interned there. I failed to get an image from it into the magazine, though I thought it would be awesome. for reals.
Posted on 15-Jul-07 at 3:03 am | Permalink
Colin wrote:
While I haven’t actually spent the night in a love hotel, from what I understand they’re not all crazy like this, especially not in the countryside and small towns. A lot of them are just sort of cheap hotels that you can have sex in if you want. I have a couple of (straight) male friends who spent the night in one. Also, you can pay for the whole night if you want. It doesn’t have to be by the hour. But, most of them are vaguely fantastic with funny names like Banana Donuts.
Posted on 15-Jul-07 at 8:08 am | Permalink
Evan wrote:
BANANA DONUTS!
Posted on 15-Jul-07 at 10:09 am | Permalink
Joel wrote:
I’ve heard of these before. I guess if there is a demand (and apparently there is) someone’s gonna fill it.
…
That was a sexual induendo and I didn’t even realize it. In HER endo! ZING! BANG!
Posted on 15-Jul-07 at 11:28 am | Permalink
Emma wrote:
I saw this book at a book store last semester and almost died of happiness. God, it’s SO COOL. I did a “stand there and look through the whole book”. You know you’ve done it before, don’t deny it.
Posted on 15-Jul-07 at 9:22 pm | Permalink
patrick wrote:
I dunno, the love hotel district in Shibuya is really bizarre though. There really are too many weird ones for me to remember going to, but there was one pirates themed, that had a johnny deep looking sculpture in it. All in all I think they are less sketchy than what a similar thing would be in US. Two things weirded me out though. All the hotels have karaoke and video games, and when you walk in there is a bunch of pictures of all the rooms and you select which weird room you want. We took a bunch of pictures, but my camera was dead =[.
Posted on 16-Jul-07 at 11:30 am | Permalink
Allison wrote:
yeah, apparantly these are just places people go to have sex, which is fine. sex is good, its just the really wierd ones–like gulliver’s travels(?!?)that is totally wierd to me. Katie-why didnt you steal me one!??! Photobooks? seriously!??
Posted on 17-Jul-07 at 10:28 am | Permalink