đź’¸ I Used to Lose Money on Every Exhibition

How Zines Helped Me Change That

Over the past 6 weeks, I’ve held 3 exhibitions!
If you’ve ever done an exhibition before, you know how much work that takes.

For my birthday exhibition last week, I was printing in my darkroom until past midnight the night before—so technically, I spent the first moments of my birthday surrounded by trays and chemicals.

But looking back, I’d say all 3 shows were a huge success.
One visitor told me, “Seeing you constantly exhibit and make zines keeps me inspired. Just knowing you’re out there doing your thing motivates me to keep doing photography.”
Hearing that meant the world to me.

So in this issue, I want to reflect on those exhibitions and share what I keep in mind when organizing a photo exhibition, and my personal take on it all.
If you’re thinking of doing your own exhibition someday, I hope this helps.

Table of Contents

🛳 YOUNG HAMA Just Set Off on a 9-Month Voyage

You probably know this already—but my friend and fellow photographer YOUNG HAMA @young__hama has officially left Japan to work on a tuna fishing boat.
For the next 9 months, he’ll be documenting life at sea while working as a fisherman, capturing shots of the tuna industry from the inside.

Before he left, we went on a little road trip together. I made a video about that journey—and in it, HAMA opens up about why violence has been such a recurring theme in his photography.
Check it out if you’re curious about what drives his work.

đź’¸ I Used to Lose Money on Every Exhibition

Let’s rewind a bit and talk about my past exhibitions.

I started photography seriously in 2018. At the same time, I launched TOKYO-SPC because I wanted to connect with other street photographers.
That October, we held our very first group show. TOKYO-SPC now has more than 30 members, but back then it was just four of us. And honestly, one of those four hadn’t even shot street photography before—we just needed the numbers.

Since no one knew who we were, renting a big gallery space was too risky. So we kept it small and held our show at a whiskey bar where a friend of mine worked as the manager.

Most of the people who showed up were our friends. But a few strangers who found us through Instagram came too, and I still remember how happy I felt seeing new friendships form around the work we showed.

*The very first TOKYO-SPC group show. That’s Koichi @e.m.k.i , who co-founded the group with me.

Back then, I didn’t even have the skills to make prints worth selling. I hadn’t even thought about making zines.

So yeah, we made zero money. Actually, we lost money—between the cost of prints and frames, we were fully in the red. And that wasn’t just a one-time thing. I kept showing my work, and I kept losing money.

👩‍🎨 Prints Don’t Sell—Unless You Try to Sell Them

Exhibitions cost money. A lot of photographers give up on doing shows because of that. I’ve heard so many friends say, “I want to exhibit, but I just don’t have the money.”

Maybe things are different where you live, but here in Japan, photo exhibitions usually don’t make money. That’s mostly because nobody buys prints.

But here’s the thing—I realized it’s not that prints can’t sell. It’s that most photographers aren’t even trying to sell them.

In July 2021, TOKYO-SPC did a joint show with Void Tokyo. This time, I encouraged all the members:
“Let’s put prices on our prints and actually try to sell them.”

I don’t think anyone expected to sell anything. But by then, I had already started selling my own prints, and I felt sure their work could sell too.

So what happened?

We framed the prints nicely, displayed them with clear pricing—and yes, we sold multiple prints. The amounts weren’t huge, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the experience. Everyone got to see that it’s possible to sell prints. That was a big win.

📸 The Difference Between an Image and a Photograph

After doing a few more exhibitions, a thought started forming in my head:
Why would someone come all the way to a gallery to see photos they could’ve just seen on Instagram?

Honestly, I’ve been to a lot of photo exhibitions by amateur photographers, and sometimes I find myself thinking, “Did this really need to be shown in a gallery?”
Maybe people have thought the same about my work too. That’s why I say this with a bit of self-reflection.

But here’s what I believe:
If you’re going to print a photo and hang it on a wall, there should be a reason it’s a print.

If there’s no need for it to be printed—if it doesn’t gain anything from being physical—then it’s not really a photograph. It’s just an image. And images? Those are fine to scroll through online.
Exhibitions filled with “just images” tend to feel pretty empty to me.

So what gives a photograph the right to be a print?

If you’ve ever seen a darkroom print up close, you know that depth in the blacks—that richness—is something you just can’t get on a screen.
Or think about the details that are completely lost on a small iPhone display—those details suddenly come alive in a large print. That shift in scale can totally change the way a viewer experiences your work.

Whether it’s the texture, the tonality, or even how the image is mounted and displayed—the print itself becomes part of the message.
That’s when an image becomes a photograph. That’s when an exhibition becomes something worth seeing.

*From our May 2025 group exhibition. We designed the space so visitors would feel like they were swimming in a sea of photographs, with prints in all kinds of sizes.

*From two weeks ago. I exhibited giant B0 and A0 size prints—absolute monsters in the best way.

And for my most recent show, I wanted to push things even further.
In addition to framed prints on the walls, I set up a long vinyl cover over the bar counter and placed contact sheet prints underneath it. I also brought in a slide projector and did a little slideshow screening.

At most shows, people walk around and view photos at their own pace. But with the slide screening, everyone was looking at the same image at the same time. It created this incredible shared experience—people reacting together, talking about what they saw.

And to me, that’s photography too—not just the prints, but the shared moments and energy that happen around them.

Then, to give people a way to take that experience home, I sell zines at my exhibitions. Over the course of these 3 recent shows, many people picked up my zines, and some even purchased prints. Thanks to that, I was able to break even instead of ending up in the red.
Huge thanks to everyone who supported me!

…I’ve got way more to say on this topic, but I’ll stop here for now. haha
Next week, I’m planning to share some tips for those of you who want to make a zine but haven’t made one yet. Stay tuned!

🗽 Hey New York—My Latest Zine Is Now Available at Contact Photo!

Big thanks to everyone who picked up a copy of my newest zine, 404 CONTACT SHEETS – NUTS.TOKYO. Since its release last month, it’s already made its way to over 10 countries—including the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany, France, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico, and Finland.

It makes me genuinely happy to see my zine connecting people around the world. That’s what zines are all about—building bridges through shared vision and creativity.

And now for some big news: a limited number of copies are available at Contact Photo, a gallery in New York! If you're nearby, definitely go check it out.

Missed my recent exhibition? No worries. This zine captures the same spirit—more than just images, it’s my take on what Photography really means. Don’t miss it!

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