Seen: Ariphoto 2015 vol.1
Who: Shinya Arimoto / website
Where: Totem Pole Photo Gallery, Shinjuku
When: June 2 - 14, 2015. Open 12 - 7pm, closed Mondays
Ariphoto 2015 vol. 1 picks up where2014 vol. 1 left off- the street portraits keep on coming- he has presented another fine selection of work that, to be experienced fully, must be seen in person. The prints are jaw-droppingly good. His Ariphoto book series are the next best thing- unfortunately there is not an accompanying publication for this show.
Arimoto has a knack for meeting people who look like they’ve stumbled off the set of Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes on the streets of Shinjuku. He shoots with a genuine respect and benevolence towards his subjects, no matter their stage or level in life. This is something which always comes through in his images. Many of his usual cast appear here in the wide-angled frames that line the wall. Indeed, in the gallery this evening we had a copy of Katsumi Watanabe’s Shinjuku, India, Shinjuku out- in 1994 Watanabe has made a portrait of a homeless man in Shinjuku (near the Odakyu west exit, judging by the tiling behind him), a man whom Arimoto has photographed many times over the years throughout the Ariphoto series- one can’t help feel that this man’s recent photographic reincarnation is that of a sādhu , a renunciate in ungainly plastic-framed glasses and now grayed, windswept hair.