Because all what we have is now
I have been ignoring this important task of any artist for far too long. I resort to Illustrator CS5, guides and Baskerville font. Rest should be easy except that..
How many times I have felt that I need my own art director..
Anyway, being a photographer without up-to-date portfolio is like being a bird with no feathers. So, break a leg, Jaakko!
Since I was a kid, doctors concluded that my heart was “a little different”. There was an extra beat in there, and I had to go to these rather clinical tests where they put sensors in my body and tried to research the abnormality. Because I had to stay away from school those times, and my “a little different” nature; I was constantly bullied.
But somehow in my adolescence, the doctors concluded that my heart will continue beating just fine even if placed under heavy stress. Therefore I was not allowed the exception; I had to join the Finnish Army.
Somehow, in my environment I really had no choice of civilian service. So I decided alone that I have to bite the bullet and go through the service like everyone else.
I was recruited as an engineer; one of the hardest jobs in the army. It includes carrying heavy mines on your back.
Because of my little different heart, my physical strength just didn’t match the others. Within one week from the start of my recruitment, I fell into a hole in the obstacle course and hurt my back.
I was in pretty bad shape. My disc in my back bone got ruptured and caused infection in the spine. That caused high fever. In addition all kinds of other ailments came up during the time when I was in the hospital, including gall stones which required surgery within a year of that event. I had awful pain in my back and I screamed at night.
They shot morphine-derivative in me.
It was like a crazy dream, which only got worse. I was lucky enough to be repatriated after I signed the document in which I stated that my mental condition wasn’t good enough in order to operate in the force.
When I returned my home five months earlier as others, I was a minority.
Even today I depend in my “little different” heart.
I don’t think I’m such a brave person, but I am very proud that I discovered my difference, and my sensitivity.
I continue to call myself as minority. Not a world citizen but world foreigner.
It is a status I intend to keep.
I often feel, or notice that I’m sensitive about things that people around me barely notice. I’m not talking about art; that’s another topic; I’m talking about just normal things people encounter in their daily lives. As a result, I often feel I’m not made for this world, you know that I don’t quite belong here!
This is the starting point for my new movie. Theme of this project is about protecting the sensitivity we see in others, that something invisible what we feel so familiar with. Perhaps, because we ourselves often feel we need that same protection. We want someone to recognize that something most important thing in ourselves, and then take great care of it, nurturing it and making it grow, like a plant.
To make a story of a photographer is nothing new or unique, but I feel that it makes perfect, artistic context to the theme.
I plan to shoot this short movie in summer, and I’m looking for volunteers. Since this is independent movie and no commercial profit will be made from this, I cannot pay any salaries.
However, I strongly believe that this is something important and beneficial for the world, so in this regard, I am not ashamed to ask your volunteer help to realize this.
Let me know if you are interested, and let’s formulate a concrete plan to realize the production.
僕は、ほかの人がほとんど見落としそうないろいろなことについ
このことが今回の僕の新しい映画の出発点です。このプロジェク
写真家についてのストーリを作ることは、何も新しいことではあ
僕は、この夏に写真家を主人公としたショートムービーを作る予
しかし、僕はこの短編映画の作成は、何かこの世界に対して価値
もし、あなたがこのことに興味があるならぜひ教えてください。
I am a child of two mothers,
a child of two continents
My elliptical path,
My seasonal shift
I circle alone,
together
The hope,
that exists in the world of no hope
I greet you,
my fellow satellite
I have arrived to my wife’s hometown in Mie. I was planning to stay in Yokohama until end of this week, because of Yokohama Art Department event which was organized by my friends in Art Mania.
But since my wife is pregnant and the baby seems to come earlier than expected, I decided I must return here as soon as possible.
Island Mother shooting and the Monday’s session after it, with my friend Saeko Nakahara, was very fascinating and emotionally moving process.
I feel humbled by it, and you know, being such a crybaby, I couldn’t stop my tears. The theme itself is about life and death, and one’s passing through life. Saeko was totally amazing. I have never met anyone so talented in my life so far.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be wrong to say that part of me was burned away in the process of making these images.
And I’m saved by it.
The images are completed now, and there’s nothing more to add.
I hope I will continue to have the necessary courage to fight and challenge myself. Because it’s my job to take a photo.
I wrote to JPG Mag self-portrait title “I Fear the Cold Wind of the Society”. For my happy surprise, I received some encouraging words from my fellow photographer Maya:
http://jpgmag.com/photos/3299575
What I meant by that title wasn’t really as melancholic as it turned out to be, and I certainly didn’t mean Japanese society, but all societies in general, regardless of location or country.
I was bullied in school, you know, and compulsory army service wasn’t exactly the nicest experience for me either, and both of them, during the years of my youth, represented a kind of society. And I guess I’ve never really been able to adjust into any kind of society.
And I am easy to get panic attack if I have to operate under pressure in front of many people.
But as Maya wisely wrote: “Be a tree of wholeness rather than a tree in the forest.”
I feel somehow comforted by this wisdom. We don’t have to belong to the group in order to operate within one. And we can always leave if we feel so.
by Jaakko
A dear friend of mine once said that meeting other people is like peeling our onion, giving away layers of ours. The surrounding people help us to see inside, into the inner chambers of ourselves. We keep on peeling, mirroring ourselves on the others, and every time it hurts.
What if there was nothing inside? Just emptiness. Empty, spherical hollow filled with nothing.
Imagine a man who goes through a great trouble, perhaps the greatest trouble of all, in order to see his inside. He takes the peeling seriously. He suffers unimaginable spiritual and physical pain in order to reach the core. At some point, he finally finishes his task. He is in his core. And what does he find? Empty space.
I and my friend had numerous conversations about this, sometimes the onion becoming a cabbage, but ok, more or less the same thing. We came into the conclusion that it is necessary to hold some cover to be able to live in this world. We can’t go running around naked (not in this society anyway) and it is natural to hide some aspects of your personality. And vice versa: we don’t want to be covered in a thick layer of clammy cabbage.
If we sauté an onion, it becomes transparent. So maybe we could, somehow, gently fry ourselves slightly so that others could see through us. But in order to live happy lives, we must not overdo it.
My conclusion at this point is that perhaps human psyche is the layers of the onion. The whole structure. It’s not what is inside but it’s the various levels and layers. And even if that something inside could be brought to daylight, our perception could not detect it.
Take sorrow, for example. We can’t measure it. Science can only deal with the layers, and that’s what cognitive psychology is all about; our thoughts are the layers. The thoughts that are brought to us by our parents, teachers, friends and great novelists of the world.
After all, the point about peeling the onion is that we can choose which layers to keep and which to discard. Tears might come, but it’s natural.