In Japanese lore, locking eyes with a raven is an evil omen. So when Masahisa Fukase’s second marriage came to a bitter end just as he had begun documenting the sleek corvids, it would have been easy to blame the birds for his misfortune. Instead, the photographer embraced their curious, dissonant nature and personified them in Ravens, a collection of raw, black-and-white images that treads between foreboding and meditative. Published in 1986 and dubbed the best photobook of the last 25 years in the British Journal of Photography for redefining self-portraiture, Fukase’s series encapsulates more than a decade of interactions with ravens as he shuttled between his home in Tokyo and his birthplace of Hokkaido. From silhouetted flocks flying against an angry sky to frenzied tracks littering the snow, the artist found impressions of ravens all around him. Upon release, the first few editions quickly sold out in Japan (where it was called Karasu)—but his work gained little...