JTF (just the facts): Self published by the artist in 2025 (no book link). Perfect bound softcover, 10 x 8.6 inches, 120 pages, with 82 color photographs. Includes texts by Sakiko Setaka and the artist, and a pullout insert with Japanese translations. Design by Noriteru Minezaki. In an edition of 500 copies. (Cover and spread shots below.)
Comments/Context: Like its author, Masahiro Shimazaki’s self-published monograph 2014 SE Taylor St, arrived in the United States with little fanfare. I stumbled on a copy at Hi Books in Portland, Oregon, which appears to be the only domestic stockist. The book’s appendix lays out some basic facts about its author in very small type, almost as an afterthought. Shimazaki was born in 1980 in Nagasaki, Japan, moved to Portland in 2014 to work as a freelance photographer, and returned in 2016 to Tokyo, where he now lives. That’s it for his bio.
He may keep a low profile but Shimazaki is not inactive. Judging by his Instagram account, his career seems well ensconced in Tokyo, with steady commercial gigs and occasional exhibitions. Still, it’s hard to learn much about him from this side of the Pacific. His website notes that he began photography in 2006, after which he worked for a few studios in Tokyo. But his site has no CV, no interviews, reviews, or prose. It’s not clear what initially brought him to Portland, what he experienced there, or why he eventually returned to Japan.
With so much missing from Shimazaki’s story, I had to parse 2014 SE Taylor St, closely for clues. Luckily the book provides a substantial trove of information. There are eighty-two color photographs, a mix of verticals and horizontal frames with the same 6 x 7 aspect ratio. Presumably they were exposed with a medium format film camera. They depict elements of Portland, but none were shot while Shimazaki lived there. Instead he made them years later, during several return visits from Tokyo to Oregon, camera in tow. Many are culled from one extended trip in the summer of 2019, with pictures from other visits scattered in the mix. There are no captions or dates to distinguish which pictures are from which trip.
The book’s title 2014 SE Taylor St, is a double entendre (and its comma is intentional). It references the year Shimazaki moved to Portland, and also denotes his former address. A few pages into the book that very spot appears in a photograph. A large home looms behind dense tree foliage and green street signs marking the intersection of SE 20th and Taylor. Like many of the street signs in the neighborhood, this one is plastered with stickers. The house is a typical Portland bungalow with a wrap around porch adorned with year-round Christmas lights.
When he lived here, Shimazaki would often begin his photo walks from this corner. He was usually in the company of fellow Portland transplant Sakiko Setaka, a writer and coffee shop owner who knew him by the nickname Masa. As she remembers warmly in the book’s afterword, “Everything felt far lighter back then—literally, as we biked from back alleys to cliffs, and figuratively, as our days carried a sense of unburdened freedom.”
A shared sense of wistful yearning seems at least partially responsible for luring Shimazaki back to his old stomping grounds. “I wandered through the neighborhoods near the house where I once lived, letting my feet lead the way,” he reminisces about his subsequent visits. “I sought solace in nostalgia as I noticed the changes.” These thoughts are excerpted from a short paragraph of first-person reflection. It’s his only text in the book, juxtaposed with a whimsical hand-drawn map of the U.S.A. denoting Portland and LA.
Portland is a city in rapid flux, and parts of it look much different now than they did just a few short years ago. A book like this would be a time capsule under any conditions. But there is something distinctive in Shimazaki’s visual style which feels dated and sentimental. His practice is rooted in the fusty process of unplanned exploration. All of his pictures were shot in the dry summer months, with nary a puddle in sight (although one enjoys a brief downpour). Portland has a well deserved reputation as a dank place, and so these unexpectedly luminous scenes glow with a hagiographic edge. That feeling is exacerbated by a slight magenta/yellow cast which carries throughout the book, lending a gilded viscosity to scenes which are already gauzy. The photos exude a warm radiance, like bugs trapped in amber.
Shimazaki favored mornings and afternoons for photo outings, with long shadows and sharp lighting. Sometimes the Oregon weather chipped in with an overcast lightbox day, opening the spectrum of photo possibilities to 360 degrees. His subject matter was just as omnivorous. 2014 SE Taylor St, sketches a city of homes, pets, flowers, and sidewalk discards. The pace is languid. The grass is brown. The cars are rust-free. Weeds and moss encroach on any unmaintained space. Requisite photos of a Mt. Hood mural and a patch of roses (Portland is the Rose City) are included for local flavor. These are just a few of the vernacular details that distinguish Portland as its own place.
Shimazaki was especially tuned to people, and the majority of his images are portraits. The circumstances of his photo ops are unknown, but most appear to be brief encounters shot in passing. Hello, stand there, click, good. He captured a broad demographic range of ages, genders, ethnicities, and fashions. Some frames show siblings or relatives. One woman pops up twice in different situations, experimenting with various personas. A long haired hipster with mustache, skinny jeans, and stacked Red Bulls might be fresh off the set of Portlandia. For a few photos—perhaps friends or relatives?—Shimazaki ventured inside homes to snap domestic tableaus. Taken collectively they comprise a fair representation of Portland. “To the people I met along the way, to this city, and to the friends who always welcome me so warmly,” he writes, “I offer my deepest gratitude.”
Book title notwithstanding, Shimazaki covered a wide swath of the city beyond his neighborhood. Photos of Cathedral Park, Sellwood, Powell Butte, Laurelhurst Pond, and Burnside Skatepark reveal a photographer with an expansive appetite. “He would start his day with coffee, choosing his destination on a whim,” explains Setaka. “When the day stretched long, he’d hop on a bus, getting off wherever his curiosity led him.” With this open-ended improvisational style, Shimazaki struck the raw photo nerve which joins Japan to Portland. One culture’s unmei is another’s kismet.
Notably omitted from his outings was the downtown core. In fact there are no photos in the book from the city’s wealthier west side. Shimazaki seemed instead content with the sprawling bottomlands east of the Willamette River, where most Portlanders make their homes and livelihoods.
Twenty years ago those bottomlands included me. From 1997 to 2006 I lived on the very same street as Shimazaki, roughly a mile east at 4705 SE Taylor at the base of Mount Tabor. Before that I lived at SE 35th and Alder and then SE 27th and Morrison. All of these addresses are in the Sunnyside neighborhood, a short walk from 2014 SE Taylor St. I’ve combed this area countless times for photographs, initially as a resident and later as a regular visitor from Eugene. I know it like the back of my hand.
Judging by his photos, Shimazaki has developed an intimate connection as well. The people, places, and things in his debut monograph are eerily familiar. Even if they are strangers, I feel as if I have met them already. In fact 2014 SE Taylor St, captures the funky essence of Portland as well as any photobook I’ve seen. Heck, it’s even self-published, in true DIY spirit.
It’s quite a trick to photograph a foreign city as a visitor, and come away with such an endearing and authentic impression. Of course Shimazaki is no casual interloper. He is a former Portland resident. His dual identity helped him to size up the place as both an insider and outsider. Using Szarkowski’s terms, his vantage was half mirror, half window.
Under the lure of nostalgia, those roles may have blurred. After all, the past is always viewed from a distance. But Shimazaki’s return visits have earned him proximity. He has crystalized his impressions even as they fade into the mirror. 2014 SE Taylor St, might yet establish him as an honorary Portlander.
Collector’s POV: Masahiro Shimazaki does not appear to have gallery representation at this time. Interested collectors should likely follow up directly with the artist via his website (linked in the sidebar).
