Books: Photographer captures kaleidoscopic Japan

As Instagram and other social media swell the ocean of photographs surrounding us, we are at risk of becoming desensitized to all but the most arresting of images. "Many photographs are, alas 'inert under my gaze.'" wrote the semiotician Roland Barthes in "Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography." Barthes added: "Even among those which have some existence in my eyes, most provoke only a general and, so to speak, polite interest."