Seen: どうすることもできない / I Can’t Do Nothing
Where: Totem Pole Photo Gallery, Shinjuku
When: March 29 - April 10, 2016 / 12:00 - 7:00pm (closed Mondays)
Fuchikami joined Totem Pole in 2015- around that time in an admin meeting Shinya Arimoto said to the rest of us “this guy’s better than me”- - Of course photography needn’t be thought of so strictly along that hierarchical value-scale, since good pictures can be (even, or especially) made accidentally. Fuchikami’s pictures though, are not accidental in the least- he’s able to make his portraits with apparent consent from each of his subjects. His interest in formal / spatial solutions to picture-problems are straightforward yet just careful enough to allow for a look that never crosses the line into that stiff “you don’t take a photograph you make it” kind of nonsense. His photographs are taken- however, due to the respect he has for his subjects, they are in a sense given, as well.
Not yet thirty, Fuchikami is never without his Pentax 67 and 105 mm lens. He’s always ready to go. Indeed, our gallery admin meetings usually end around 9 or 10pm- and as we all leave the venue he’s got his Pentax and flash around his neck- “going home?” I’ll ask- “Not yet- I’m going to Shibuya to photograph”, he answers. Dedication like this into the work of actual shooting , not to mention all the great photos themselves (his 16x20 fiber prints prove his darkroom skills), puts Fuchikami rightfully in the position in line of the great Tokyo street portraitists- Issei Suda, Seiji Kurata, Katsumi Watanabe, Haruto Hoshi,Shinya Arimoto, to name just a few.
This is Fuchikami’s third show at tppg- no doubt he still has a lot more in him. Here’s to looking forward to what more he’ll show us in the future.