Working Girls: A Study in Are, Bure, Boke

In Working Girls, Richard Gardner converges his background in high-fashion photography for the subversive energy of the 1960s Japanese Provoke movement.

This series deconstructs the polished beauty of his 80s and 90s fashion sensibility, reimagining department storefronts through the radical Are, Bure, Boke (grainy, blurry, out-of-focus) aesthetic. By rejecting traditional clarity,

Gardner captures the commercial landscape with a raw, surrealist grit reminiscent of French New Wave cinema and the legendary Daido Moriyama.

It is a haunting, graphic dialogue in which high style meets experimental fragmentation, turning modern advertising into an atmospheric study of light and motion.

“Eros is for sale on the Shinto minialters in department stores.” - Takahiki Okada

Working Girls

Working Girls

Working Girls