Category: Personal

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Liberation

I have been taking a lot of pictures of my son. “I’m tired to be your model, please take pictures of something else”, my son says.

I suppose part of my journey as a photographer is to seek meaning of a picture. Shooting own family member automatically secures some meaning to the frame, as the time spent will never return. Child will never be child again and we will all die. Even if it’s not a very good photo in photographic sense, it will still be important because it’s unique record of the time and relationship.

For me taking pictures like that also guides me to seek my relationship to the world. I am what people call me in Japanese “majime”, a serious person , sort of. I am so very interested in human. I surely hope that my intention would be visible in any pictures I take and especially pictures of women.

It seems like every line in my life is pointing to the direction of my eventual death and disappearing. I am not sure if all people in the age of 38 think about death as much as I do. But I hope that today I can live fully and be the best version of myself.

A photo should be a liberation.

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I took her photo

I was taking pictures in local area in Yokohama few days ago. There is my favorite photo development / old camera shop. I met this lovely lady in the old shopping street and took her photo.

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Ping

Artist is always alone, like submarine in deep sea. But sometimes we can make radio communications to others, and we get response, even though it may be garbled, messed up information.

But for a brief moment, we can make out the signal, separate it from the noise, hear the code that makes some sense.

To be not alone, it’s crazy dream. But isn’t it the only reason there is hope.. to get a ping back, echo from the deep

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Empty wall

I built a large acoustic panel last year to put in my room. I wanted to make it really cool, like the ones you see in studios with fancy wood grain. I wanted to put diagonal wood beams to it to give it really professional look, but my measurements failed, and I only had wood enough to make them run horizontally. Thus the whole thing ended up looking like a stupid bed that is raised against the wall. The thing is full of glass wool.

But I noticed that this contraption made a little or no difference to neither the sound recording in my room or the sound from my speakers. Its same with or without it, so I pulled it apart today to make more negative space in my room.

All my effort became nothing, and it could be argued that this was all completely meaningless endeavor. I would have better of spending that money to photo books or my favorite albums. But it’s meaningless also to spend time thinking about it now. It’s done and gone.

Isn’t art exactly like this kind of process? We have big effort do something and then it just vanishes like in thin air and we are empty again? And for sure sometimes this all feels meaningless. Are we just blind to see it?

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Finland

I want to restart my blog. I want to write free and gay, without too much editing, just for fun. The reason why I have been kept starting and quitting this blog is that I have always started to feel that this blog should be more properly written, and always on topic. But I don’t find it fun or genuine, so I stop, always.

We humans are not such linear beings. We are not supposed to make sense all the time. What I need in my life most now is a kind of pointless wandering, time. My photo needs it too. So I hope this blog would be a simple and naked reflection to my life.

I visited Finland last month with my son. Going abroad with him just two of us first time was a dream came true. For me it was perhaps the enjoyable to go through the rituals of traveling just with him this time. I explained him how jet airplanes work and why they fly so high in the sky. We checked our luggage, eat the cute lunch in the plane (yes, Finnair still include green soba buckwheat noodles in their lunch as although their lunch is completely western), breathed in Scandinavian air, and played with snow.

Finland, a country where my sweet home is. I moved to Japan ten years ago.

Why is it that we always expect our hometown to stay the same? Our lives change constantly, plate tectonics shift, world economy and geopolitical situation is in flux, this ebb and flow, moon cycle, and so on.. Nature likes to change. But when we take the journey back home, even when it’s not thousand kilometers in the sky, we expect everything be just like it was when we left, so many years ago.

Of course, it isn’t. During those years of our absence, people have been living their lives, went on and about,  gained age and some of them got sick and passed away. The scenery has changed; it doesn’t smell like it used to. Cracks have appeared on the walls that used to be the foundation of our childhood. What used to be a solid, safe roof is now slightly leaking.

My uncle’s book, “Kolme Huonetta” has a poem in it, “Prelude foreshadows the end of the composition”. Beginning of a winter has a promise of it’s end. When our plane took off from Helsinki Vantaa, somehow the thought formed in my mind, “it’s not just sad that we die”.

I bought just two things with me from Finland, Haruki Murakami’s short story collection Birthday Stories,  and Banana Yoshimoto’s Lizard. Both of them are in English, not in Japanese. There’s something in these books what makes me feel comfortable. Perhaps I haven’t changed that much.

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Pray

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Food is not enough to live. It may be enough for surviving, but surviving cannot substitute living. We need spiritual nourishment to feel alive. We need a way to grow.

If this is a journey, then photography is a means of transportation for me. It is my way for getting to the other side.

I do not particularly like comfort. It’s not that I want to be uncomfortable, and we all need a sense of security too. But I do not take photos because it’s fun.

Sure, you could say it’s kind of fun. It is definitely not boring, and it’s such a great excuse to meet other people. And I like to discuss about photography with strangers. But it’s is sometimes like getting naked in front of others. They can see you, but you can’t see them; you are exposed while they are under protective covers. Especially when you exhibit your work.

How many times I have said that I will quit? Well, too many times. I should stop doing that. But somehow, I always end up returning, just like this.

Then, photography is a way for me to feel free and connected.

I wish we humans would have more opportunities to enhance ourselves spiritually in our daily lives.
This wish is my prayer. I pray for the spontaneous conversation to happen.

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Lensculture Exposure Awards Entry

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I joined Lensculture Exposure awards competition with a single image entry.  I feel quite satisfied with this image so I selected it spontaneously with innocent mind. If I had tried to select it with more effort I think I would have not been able to make a good choice. Of course this photo has no title, only title I could think of would be “Yoko”, the name of the woman in picture.

I can respect the photos Lensculture selects, and also the letter I received from the curator regarding my last entry was honest and very helpful.

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When I ride my bicycle

When I was a young, my father taught me a basic bicycle maintenance. Just a basic things like checking the air in the tires, putting the chain back back on the gears when it fell off, and patching the tires if they got broken. His hands were strong and steady and I felt there was nothing he couldn’t fix.

You could say that in our world today, knowledge like that doesn’t make much difference. All you need to do is take the bicycle to the shop and they’ll repair and maintain it, often for free.  But I want to teach my son one day how to do those things, just the same.

I love riding a bicycle. Bicycles are simple, agile and quiet. They don’t make noise or pollution and they never block the traffic. On weekdays I take my son to the kindergarten by my pink electric assist bicycle, “a mother chariot” (mama-chari) as they are known in Japan. It’s super comfortable to drive. “Japanese women really are smart”, I thought when I tried it first time.

I love the feeling of fresh air on my cheek in morning when we ride together with my son. I say good morning to the handsome man checking the traffic near a construction site on the way, and sometimes I chat with some of the mothers in the kindergarten. Sometimes we talk about bicycles, sometimes about weather or other topics. These moments are treasures of my life.

I think about death a lot. I used to think about it when I was in my twenties but now even more. I might get hit by a truck when I’m crossing a road. Or maybe I fall on stairs and my skull cracks open. There is no way of knowing when, but one day for sure will be the last day. We must have courage to look at the beauty in our lives.. No, we must celebrate it!

Like many others such as me, I have spent my days in a fog, locking myself into my small space. I was stupid and selfish and hurt my friends who just wanted to help me. I said I was depressed, but actually I was just a shit head, as the crow outside my window said. Yet people forgave me. Ignoring my selfish words, they offered me their hand again. Thinking about my friends is like feeling the sunshine on my cheek.

There are many kinds of roads to choose, expressways, landscape routes and even small paths in the forest you can only walk. If this was your last day, which one would you choose?

There is a song by Blonde Redhead which has the line “But we’ll have fine time not getting there”. Perhaps arriving there doesn’t matter as much as how we spend the time getting there. The biggest present we can give to someone is time.

One day I will drive my bicycle in Kamakura and stare at the sea. It will be a perfect day, and I will say thanks for the crow. The sea will be gentle a there will be neither regret or fear. Perhaps my son will be driving his bicycle elsewhere, gaining mileage in his own odometer, looking at the same scenery.

You only live once.