Seen: 路上 IX / On The Street 9
Who: 淵上裕太 Yuta Fuchikami / website / instagram
Where: Totem Pole Photo Gallery, Shinjuku
When: June 22 - July 4, 2021 / 12:00 - 7:00pm (closed Mondays)
Show number nine in Fuchikami’s ongoing On The Street series features recent work made in Tokyo’s Ueno Park- how recent? Everything here on the walls was shot between April 25th and the second week of June- a week before the show went up. Over those two months he shot some 100 rolls of Fuji Pro 400H, all with his battered Pentax 67 and a single 90mm lens.
He prints at home- and no, not with a scanner and inkjet printer- these are all proper C-prints. Fuchikami keeps an enlarger and color processor in his apartment.
But enough Tech Talk. The photos are an eclectic collection of people the photographer approached- with his own un-teachable/un-learnable way- in Tokyo’s Ueno Park, one the most interesting, strange parts of the city.
Apologies for copy/pasting in what I wrote for his previous show- it’s worth saying again:
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He’s a natural portrait maker- His photos- while always being such that the subjects probably would be pleased- are made with a combination of respect, obligation, and mystery. They’re never ever sentimental or attempts to illustrate an archetype- nor are they attempts at using the subjects to push some social or moral agenda. To me they’ve got a Japanese humanism to them- they’re beautiful and sometimes uncomfortable and often have that sho-ga-nai (It “Can’t Be Helped”) acceptance of life. His images are not calls to action or pity- they’re straightforward presentations of individuals.
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That straightforwardness is what makes his photographs- and the people in them- fascinating. The longer you look, the more there is in his pictures to see.