HAJIME SAWATARI - Taste of Honey

Published in 1986, this large-format book combines several series by the Japanese photographer Hajime Sawatari. The book mixes portraits – fashionable like snapshots that seem taken from life – with still lifes of fruit. The sequence, subtle but well thought out, naturally takes us from the curve of a buttock to that of a magnificently sensual pear, then from a face to the roundness of a fig.
In his preface, the artist explains the choice of title for his book. He describes the sweetness and the sweetness of the first drop of honey, which for him resembles the first love emotions. The slight bitterness that follows and remains in the mouth is associated with his anxiety about the possible rupture that would break the sweetness of these first emotions. This text (which we find particularly touching) where the photographer reveals his fears, as well as his images and the quality of the book, unite here to form a gently sensual object where the eroticism of the body and food merge.