Seen: Street Rambler
Who: Takehiko Nakafuji /website
Where: Gallery Le Déco, Shibuya
When: Jan. 10 - 18 / 11am - 7pm (Jan. 18 open until 5)
Nakafuji is an extremely active street photographer from Tokyo who in addition to teaching workshops on photography and photo books holds regular exhibitions of his work (over forty since 1994) and has published several collections of his photographs. In between all this he runs Gallery Niepece in Shinjuku.
A lot of people are quick to blog about their “passion” for photography- that’s easy. Anyone can say that, and many do. But in the end, “passion” ultimately means little. Rather than passion one should be more concerned with dedication. Dedication is the result of consistent Work multiplied by Time. Dedication ignores easy empty words like passion in favor of hard ones like effort and struggle. Anyone can say they are passionate, but demonstrating dedication is the only thing that proves it. The work of a dedicated photographer often has the added bonus of quality. When dedication is focused well and for the right reasons, quality is inevitable. Nakafuji is dedicated. Nakafuji makes quality work.
This Street Rambler exhibition is part of his ongoing and open ended series of street photographs- this show brings together 78 photographs taken over the past ten years in Tokyo, New York, Paris, Berlin, Moscow & St. Petersburg, Havana, and Shanghai. It is also the content (and title) of his latest self-published photobook- his sixth so far. That’s dedication.
Nakafuji, a former student and continual friend of Daido Moriyama, was also extremely dedicated to his Contax G2 and Fujifilm 1600asa Super Presto film- tools which all but the Berlin (Tri-X) and Tokyo (Leica Monochrom) sections of the show were made with. Technically, his printing is incredible- the large fiber prints were done consistently in his style in his darkroom at home.