Ben Richards, photographer, traveler, and author of "Shokunin," reflects on craft, intention, and what travelers miss when they follow the usual route.
What was your background before coming to Japan?
I first Arrived in Japan for a visit in 2019, and then lived full time in Tokyo after that for about a year. For about four and a half years since then, I've sort of split in my time between Tokyo and the UK. So about seven years of traveling in total.
My background originally is in design, so I've kind of always grown up with this kind of graphic design and photography, these kind of parallel interests, which always communicated into sort of traveling and working for magazines and brands and things like that. I used to design in-flight magazines which are always subject to these kind of amazing sort of travel images and things.
And it wasn't really until I moved to Japan that the photography side of my work really took off with this kind of really deep curiosity for Japanese architecture and construction. And then it evolved into interest in crafts, as well.
Has your approach to communicating about Japan changed since you first started?
I think the biggest shift for me in the early years exploring Japan was when I decided to make my point of view all about the viewer; about the traveler and about where you can go if you want to experience a particular type of Japanese culture through this hotel, or this destination and stuff like that.
That's kind of where my website, Views from Japan, was born. It became a kind of resource where I could share all of the amazing experiences that I'd had in Japan, but make it into something that someone can digest, and make it accessible for them to go and do, and that kind of naturally then led into crafts. I wanted to express things in a way that wasn't just like, "Here's all these cool things I did," but more educational. I'm trying to get people to just venture a bit further afield, you know, and just have a more interesting experience.
Did you have like a clear plan when you first considered spending more time in Japan?
I think when I first visited, it was just curiosity and I just wanted to just shoot everything and travel. I came on a working holiday visa, so I had a year to basically just travel around, photograph things, and do some design projects. To just sort of see what was clicking and where the opportunities were.
I ended up shooting a lot for different magazines, and then hotels and companies also started to contact me. I started to build like a bit of a client base while also getting traction on social media at the same time, which allowed me more time to explore more in every destination I went to. And in Japan, the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know.
So many people come to Japan for two weeks, they do a standard itinerary and then they leave. However, I've been exploring Japan with really deep intention for seven years, and even I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. Japan is so fascinating, and there's so many layers to it. The more you uncover, the more you just want to just keep going deeper and deeper.
Have you had any distinct experiences that felt like they tipped you in your current direction in Japan?
There's definitely been trips that have had a really profound effect on me. For example, one of the first was a trip through Kanazawa, as a craft-focused trip. I went to visit one artisan, Tsuneharu Matsuda, who's in the Shokunin book. He's a katana swordsmith, the only master swordsmith actively forging katana in Kanazawa.
We drove out to the countryside to this workshop in the back of his house that's just thick with soot, black walls and his furnace. Sparks flying, he's hammering this steel, and I'm just learning from him. He's been practicing this craft for over 50 years, and I think that was one of the big moments where it was like, "wow."
So, we live in a world at the moment where we have unlimited choice, right? Unlimited Choice, unlimited distraction. And I think learning from these people, that have been practicing one trade, one skill for 50 years... I think for me, I felt like the only way I can really do that justice is if I really specialize in this as well... in Japan as a whole. But people say to me, "Are you gonna do the same thing in all these different countries?" But I'm seven years into Japan and there's still so much more to tell.
I think the way the only way to really do this justice is to treat it with the same respect and intention that these Shokunin maintain themselves. That one visit was definitely an eye-opening trip.
A lot of people have different ideas of what craft artisans in Japan are like. What what your idea of them before you first meet one and saw what they do in person, versus your perception after?
I think the word that comes to mind is just "pride." I think there seems to be real deep pride in what they do, and I've been to so many workshops where you know that the work - the ceramics or the tea whisk - will be impressive, as you'd expect.
But when you meet the person it's like... I've been in so many situations where they'll also want to serve you tea, and they're suddenly taking out old family photographs. "This is my grandfather, he he did the same craft," or "Here's this is this book I was featured in." There's a kind of humble pride, and it's not showing off but simply that they have this sense of purpose. When you really meet someone you kind of see it through images and videos and stuff, but I think until you really spend time personally, physically in these spaces...
I wasn't really "surprised" in terms of it being different to what I expected, but I think that the depth and the the layers to meeting them is really what is surprising. They want to show you around their home and they wanted you to meet their family and want you to have tea, and funnily sometimes you have somewhere else you need to be but you just want to stay anyways.
Maybe there's an element from the outside where people might see it as being unapproachable. To drive to some someone's house or workshop in the middle of the Japanese countryside. But I think trying to bridge that gap and introduce people to ways they can do it, whether it's introduced into a great guide or there's a pre-arranged experience to make it a bit more accessible... You might even see these quite stern looking photos of artisans online, very focused on their work. But, when you meet these people that are just so proud of what they do, they're happy and they're content and they're not swayed by the pressures of social media and things like we all are, there's this honesty to it which is really nice.
Do you do you get the feeling that they're aware of how the rest of the world maybe sees them?
I don't think they think about it. I don't think it crosses their mind. It's a very different to the Western approach of, "How are other people gonna see me?" or "How do I come across to other people?" I think, especially outside of the major cities in Japan, I think in the countryside, they are just keeping their family tradition going. They just care about what's happening in the four walls that they're in, their family, and showing respect to the people around them. I don't think they really mind too much about how they're being perceived.
It's a bit of a new concept in a way, because we're kind of chronically online now. We're putting ourselves out on social media, connected with people all around the world. Whereas I think a lot of these craft studios are living in the past, in a way... they have these transistor radios and paper calendars on the wall, and they're always writing things down somewhere. It's so manual. It's so analog. And there's a bit of a freedom in that, to be honest, that they don't seem to worry about how they're perceived.
You've built this amazing site, Views from Japan, published a book of the same name, and now the "Shokunin" book as another really great bridge for global audiences to connect more deeply with Japan's artisans. How do the people and places in your books and website differ from what people normally consider when planning to visit Japan?
I would say travel planning to Japan, it's quite broken because there's so many one-size-fits-all itineraries or guides. But, someone I spoke to recently wanted to visit Japan because they had a particular interest in a very specific type of tree. And they wanted to just visit these places that had this particular type of tree. Someone else might be a foodie. Someone else is interested in really modern contemporary architecture. And I think it's in those personal interests which kind of allows Japan to truly shine.
There's so many niche interests, so many subcultures and so many nuanced parts of Japanese culture, that I think it's unfair when you see these big magazines or these big online companies saying, "Here's the best way to spend 14 days in Japan." It really depends on what you're interested in. Perhaps the reason people resonate with my stuff is because I only really share what I'm personally passionate in. I'm really interested in design, crafts, great hotels. So people who have similar interests to me will come to my site because they trust my taste and they trust that I've experienced these things myself. And I wouldn't showcase it If I hadn't personally wanted to do it myself.
I'm not trying to create viral content and stuff like that, to just please as many people as possible. I'm really trying to create a community of people that have a shared interest and that care about visiting a neighborhood that maybe isn't one of the super mainstream things. People want to experience Japan through design, or see how locals actually live. Who it's not for, is also as important as who it is for, I think. I'm not afraid to fail to attract certain people, because I want our community to know what they're on board for, and then I can really double down on providing the most value and for that kind of traveler.
But also for the hotels that I work with, for the artisans, the tourism boards, to know that they're also trying to attract the right sort of person. There's an education side to that and often when I speak to hotels that I work with, they struggle to attract the right type of person because someone maybe hadn't done all their research, and they're expecting what they're used to in America or wherever. But actually these traditional hotels and these traditional things in Japan are very, very different and they're not going to change for you, nor should they. Because that's what makes them special.
Based on everything that you've seen and documented so far, do you feel like there's anything that needs to change in order to support the future of traditional crafts in Japan?
It's one of the themes I kind of looked into in the book. With each artisan profile, there's kind of four themes that I've kind of infused into the approach. There's "Purpose," the question of, "why is this artistan doing it?" Is it something they've developed, that they love? Is it a family thing? Is it what gets them out of bed every day?
Then there's the "Form." It's about the material side, the actual craft to it. How sustainable is that? Is it based on limited resources? If it's, for example, a beautiful tea whisk that was carved out of bamboo. If that were instead mass-produced and turned to plastic, what does it lose in that?
Then there's the "Innovation" side. That for humans to survive, we need to adapt, right? If we still do the same thing, from 50 years ago to today, it might not continue to work. There's different ways you can innovate, and some studios are innovating by introducing new kind of products. For example, maybe there's an indigo die business where originally they only used to die a particular type of cloth, but now they think, "Actually, maybe people would buy this as a Tenugui towel, or as a little gift." So, they're innovating in that sense of maintaining the technique, but expressing it in more marketable forms.
Some are innovating in terms of the materials, or they're innovating in terms of still producing things, massively by hand. For example, I was at a tile manufacturing workshop in Kyoto. They have these these new molds and they can speed up their process. But the core handmade production is still there. And the other innovation is Tourism, because the artisan and the craft doesn't have to change, they can still do exactly what they want to do. And they can sustain themselves by having visitors come to see them, do a workshop or a craft experience, and then the visitor can either buy their works or pay for the time and stuff. I think that sustainability is not necessarily only through change, rather finding ways to be open to adaptation ever so slightly.
The final theme is "Legacy." Is there an apprentice? Someone to pass this on to afterwards? It could just be bringing in a new person that's maybe outside of the family, or is a foreigner. It's really sad when you go to a workshop and there's four people working and they're all in the nineties, and there's no one to pass this down to, because the door will just close and that'll be that. And that's happening all across Japan. So, I think for artisans, it's crucial actually - being open to adaptation.
You can follow Ben via Views from Japan on their Instagram, learn more on their website, and get a copy of Shokunin on his Shop page.
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