A Day in the Life of Japan

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

What’s so special about June 7, 1985? That was the day chosen to be captured for posterity in A Day in the Life of Japan. From all over the world, 100 renowned photojournalists converged upon Japan; their mission, naturally, to take pictures. From the almost 135,000 photographs taken during the course of that single day, hundreds were selected for inclusion in this magnificent, outsize volume — a coffeetable book par excellence, readable and informative as well as being quite stunningly gorgeous. The photographers were given absolute freedom to choose whatever they wished to record: old or new, ugly or beautiful, sad or joyous, in color or in black and white. Here are the results, surely the very next best thing to a visit to Japan. (Several of the photographers whose work is included also contributed to the earlier publication, A Day in the Life of Canada.)