Japanese photographer Rika Noguchi shot the photographs of her series “Rainbow” during a trip to Tottori Prefecture, famous in Japan for its large sand dunes. By chance, in the distance she saw a group of paraglider students preparing for a test flight and captured the scene in photographs. The sequence of images shows a single flyer’s final preparations, taking off, being in the air, and landing again, all set against the stark contrast of the beige sand of the dunes and a cloudless pastel sky.

In a statement for a solo exhibition at Taka Ishii Gallery, Noguchi mentions “distance” as a central theme of the series: “the distance from here to a rainbow, people appearing as if they have landed on a far-flung planet.”

For the book, publisher Yamada Book Publishing carefully matched the paper and printing choices to replicate the soft, airy feeling of a paragliding wing in flight.

first edition of 1000 copies