Sean and Tennbo Lotman – Puking Rainbows Past and Future

Review by Rudy Vega ·

Puking Rainbows, Past and Future is a captivating collaborative project by Sean Lotman and his son Tennbo, blending the boundaries between photobook and artist book. Encased in a cardboard slipcover adorned with Sharpie doodles and Instax prints—featuring individual portraits of the duo on the front and back—each copy is a unique edition, emphasizing its artistic essence. Measuring 4.25” x 6” with pages glued and stitched at the top, the book’s design playfully evokes the feel of a flipbook. While my reviews typically don’t delve deeply into design details, this project’s innovative and personal approach demands the extra attention to fully appreciate its creative vision.

At its core, Puking Rainbows is not just a collection of images but a testament to the creative dialogue between father and son, framed within the nostalgic immediacy of instant photography. This diaristic project, initiated when Tennbo was just five years old, captures fleeting moments of childhood and parenthood through a medium that itself embodies ephemerality. The interplay between Tennbo’s intuitive compositions and Sean’s seasoned photographic eye generates a compelling tension between spontaneity and experience. The book’s physical structure—hand-assembled pages, rainbow-colored stitch binding, and the inclusion of childhood drawings—reinforces the deeply personal nature of the project, making each copy feel like an artifact of lived experience rather than a mere publication.

Sean Lotman recounts the origins of the project in a way that underscores its emotional and conceptual weight. In December 2020, he gifted Tennbo a Fuji Instax camera, introducing him to photography as both an artistic practice and a means of self-expression. Over the next two years, father and son embarked on a visual exploration of Kyoto and beyond, capturing landscapes, portraits, and everyday scenes. The pandemic-era backdrop adds another layer of significance: a time of global uncertainty became, for them, an opportunity to engage deeply with their surroundings and each other.

Instant photography, with its inherent unpredictability and nostalgic aesthetic, serves as an ideal medium for this exploration. Lotman notes how Tennbo’s early photographic instincts often surprised him, challenging conventional wisdom about composition and subject matter. This dynamic—a father learning from his son as much as he teaches—runs throughout the project, mirroring the fluid exchange of roles that often defines creative collaboration. The book pairs these images with short written passages: Lotman’s reflections on fatherhood juxtaposed with Tennbo’s childhood musings, creating an interplay between generational perspectives.

Beyond the photographs, Tennbo’s signature doodles and hand-drawn characters populate the pages, further emphasizing the book’s hybrid nature. The title itself, Puking Rainbows Past and Future, originates from Tennbo’s sketchbook, encapsulating the boundless imagination of childhood. The book’s production, overseen by Naonori Katoh of Neutral Colors, ensures that this vision is realized in a form that feels both raw and meticulously crafted. The slipcover’s hand-drawn elements, combined with the rainbow-stitched binding, reinforce the theme of artistic playfulness while honoring the labor-intensive process behind its creation.

The images themselves span a wide range—from self-portraits and family snapshots to abstract compositions that push the boundaries of what an Instax print can convey. Notable among them is a double-exposure of Kinkakuji, where Tennbo turned the camera upside down for a second exposure, a technique he discovered independently. Such moments highlight the project’s success in fostering creative experimentation, not just documenting moments but actively engaging with the medium’s possibilities.

Ultimately, Puking Rainbows, Past and Future transcends the category of a photobook to become a richly layered exploration of memory, creativity, and collaboration. It serves as a reminder that some of the most compelling artistic projects arise not from meticulous planning, but from an openness to play and discovery. Through this father-son dialogue, the book offers a heartfelt meditation on the fleeting yet profound nature of childhood, beautifully preserved in an object as tactile and personal as the experiences it encapsulates.

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Rudy Vega is a Contributing Editor and resides in Irvine, Ca. He is a fine art photographer and writer.

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Sean Lottman, Tennbo Lotman – Puking Rainbows, Past and Future

Photographer: Sean Lotman, Tennbo Lotman, born Los Angeles, CA and resides Kyoto, Japan

Essays: Sean Lotman

Additional Text: Tennbo Lotman

Editor: Naonori Katoh

Book Design: Daiske Kano and Erisa Yamashiro

Language: English, Japanese

Rainbow-stitched binding, 81 color Instax originals. 4.25”x6” inches; ISBN 978-4-909932-12-9

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