Girls Blue by Hiromix documents the everyday experiences, emerging identities, and close friendships of teenage girls in Tokyo during the 1990s, featuring candid photographs that begin from her own adolescent years. The project arose amidst the cultural shifts of 1990s Japan, a period marked by economic stagnation known as the "Lost Decades", creating space for younger generations to articulate new social identities and independent expressions.
Hiromix's artistic vision focuses primarily on documenting her personal experiences and daily life, subtly challenging prevailing gender norms by providing an unfiltered female perspective rarely seen in the traditionally male-dominated Japanese photography scene. Through candid snapshots, her images portray ordinary scenes such as friends relaxing, cityscapes, meals, and self-portraits, emphasizing authenticity and immediacy over technical precision.
Visually, Girls Blue employs a casual snapshot aesthetic, characterized by spontaneous composition, slightly washed-out colors typical of the era's film photography, and a reliance on available or simple on-camera flash lighting. Utilizing accessible tools such as a compact point-and-shoot film camera, Hiromix embraced simplicity in photographic methodology, highlighting her deliberate avoidance of technical complexity to achieve a raw, personal narrative style.
Girls Blue (Rockin’ On, 1996) debuted alongside the Tokyo exhibition THE deep, spreading quickly through youth-culture magazines and bookshops. International visibility followed with the Steidl monograph Hiromix (1998) and museum presentations in Japan and abroad; critical recognition culminated in the 2001 Kimura Ihei Award (shared with Yurie Nagashima and Mika Ninagawa) for Hiromix Works (2000). The 1996 book is now routinely cited as a catalyst for onnanoko shashin ("girly photography"), shaping late-1990s representations of youth, intimacy, and everyday life in Japanese photography.
