Because all what we have is now
I found beautiful photo essay by MaYa Sinji Jung 鄭信智 in JPGMag. http://jpgmag.com/stories/18598
Reading it brought tears to my eyes.
She writes lines like “None of the birds fly without the weight.” and “Freedom, and peace should have buried next to the cat you killed.”
Her beautiful self portraits do excellent justice for her poetry.
Yosuke Kakegawa & Kimiko Mori’s Icelandic Honeymoon is interesting work which suffers from being too cute. I like the overall expression, but don’t understand the shots of McDonalds meals or airplane wings. This could have been much more. Currently, too much conservative and obvious. However, color and overall feel of the photos is great, although a bit like watching a commercial.
I went to Eroguranmasse exhibition last summer in Yokohama. My friend was one of the photographers who arranged it, and also featured his own work in the exhibition. The exhibition, as the name suggests, was very cross-artistic and bohemian, with erotic theme.
My music Magical Forest was used as a background music for the exhibition, so I felt some strange , personal feeling. In fact, I was a bit startled.
Generally I liked all of the pictures and artworks, but one piece caught my eye especially. A photo framed in black.
Although the photo portrays a dead woman, and is rather believable, she seems so alive too, I remember thinking. “Intertesting..” I said to myself and went on to see other works, while my very own “Fish Hospital” played from the speakers, the piece music I had performed live in Monzennakacho year before.
After returning to see the photo (twice) I decided to buy it.
It was later revealed to me that the picture was taken by iPhone and that the woman in the photo was the artist herself. I had pleasure to meet her after the exhibition and it was very delightful to see her alive face. She proved to be witty and funny person.
I think it wouldn’t do justice of the photo if I show it here, instead I will show what is written behind the picture (after I bought it). This photo is still hanged in my office and will be unlikely replaced any time soon.
I will ask the Riesan if there is some way to see her work online. Will link.
A friend gave me this photo book by Habu some years ago. I love it. The skies and landscapes are amazing and meditative. My favorite photo is on page 24 in Taddert Morocco, where a bird is captured in godrays..
The photos are like small windows into another world. They are oddly vacant but yet hypnotic.
I am really interested to know more about the photographer. Here is what appears to be Habu’s official homepage.
I recently bought Kawashima Kotori’s photo book Miraichan. I first time saw it with my wife when we were visiting Triennale in Yokohama last summer. “Oh this is so beautiful!”, I cried to my wife. The image of the girl in red was permanently left in my heart.
Photos of Kawashima are genuine and natural. Miraichan is like a symbol of life herself. She laughs, cries and grows up in middle of wonderfully picturesque Showa era landscape. The photos are stinking of life. Here and there are photos of the surrounding nature that make a good balance for the emotional impact delivered by Miraichan.
It would be easy to call Kawashima’s photos cute, but doing so wouldn’t do justice to his work. It would be like like calling Picasso “artistic”. “Cute” just isn’t enough.
What makes these photos so emotionally moving might be because of Kawashima’s intension of capturing something greater than cute girl in red.
Kawashima wants to capture humanity that he sees in surrounding world, and he does it in very approachable way. Although my wife shows zero interest for Nobuyoshi Araki’s photos, she totally loves Miraichan. It is not small achievement to take genuinely artistic photo and make ordinary people interested of it.
Miraichan is a also a very coherent piece of work; there’s not a single unnecessary photo in the book. The pages of the book are very vibrant and print quality is excellent. The bind is also very unique. 2000円 is a bargain for this quality of print.
I want to keep this book with me always.
Kotori Kawashima 川島小鳥 (写真家) (1980) is a Tokyo born photographer, graduated from Waseda university. The photos in Miraichan are shot in Sado Island, Niigata prefecture. See Kawashima Kotori’s Official Site at: kawashimakotori.com
