If you walk back through the rather bland big color pictures in the front gallery of Yancey Richardson Gallery, you will find in the small “project room” a perfect gem of a show. Photographer Masao Yamamoto is best known for his photo/installation pieces (”A Box of Ku” being the most significant) that included large numbers of disparate images, both new and found, installed into an environment that was much like the attic of a particularly discerning uncle. Many of the images in these pieces were quite elegant by themselves, but it was the relationships between the pieces that was the focus of the artist and viewer. In this show the artist steps back, and it is almost as if he has discovered the beauty of photography for the first time. The press release quotes him, “...recently my thoughts are more focused on the individual incident - the urge to dwell deeper into each element is rising slowly.”

There is nothing in these new photographs that has not been seen before - the beauty of nature presented in a rich, dark print, has been a staple photographic trope for over a century. But just as an old song is brought to life when played by a master, the images here are charged by the elegance and intensity of Yamamoto’s vision.