Exhibited: Zuisha vol.15
Who: Me
Where: Totem Pole Photo Gallery, Shinjuku
When: Feb. 14 - 26, 2017
Fifteen of these Zuisha shows. With twenty frames at a time, that’s three-hundred pictures up on the walls over the past few years. My method of operation hasn’t changed since I was a student- shoot, develop, print, repeat. What else are you gonna do?
Early on in Japan when I’d show stacks and stacks of prints to editors and photographers they’d ask the same thing: “what exactly are you trying to say?”
Trick question- it doesn’t really matter what the artist/photographer is trying to do. Pictures are still (and just) pictures. But they’re evidence of something. I couldn’t understand how that couldn’t be more than enough.
I haven’t ever tried to say anything with these photographs- and while at first that question I mentioned above used to prove troublesome, things got a lot easier once I stopped caring. This isn’t a cop-out. The fact that these (or anyone’s) pictures were shot on film or in Japan doesn’t automatically establish them as “worthy”- - but to me, the fact that I’m the one who took them does. If someone else gets something from them, that’s fine, too.
No ideas, no plans, no projects, no expecations, no theory, no pretension- Just a straight line of vision. Pure photography.
My camera, film, feelings and life is what works for me.