Over the course of ten years, Kagawa-based photographer Toshiteru Yamaji captured the special bond between Japanese pig farmer Otchan and his 1,200 pigs. As you can tell by these photos, he cared for each individual pig in a loving and caring way. In Yamaji's book Pigs and Papa, watch as the cigarette smoking, beer drinking man becomes like their proud papa as he reads the newspaper to the pigs and plays music to them on his guitar. While we're all used to hearing about huge pig factory farms run by corporations, and their extremely harsh or crowded conditions, we're not used to seeing such sweet devotion like this.
Though at the time, Yamaji was a an amateur photographer, he ended up self-publishing his book in 2009. He was later recognized for his work as he was awarded the 13th Japan Self-Publishing Award, Graphic Prize. His book has bee published by FOIL and is now being sold on Amazon.
via [FeatureShoot]
Photos via [Asahi]
