PRESENTATION
One of the motifs of my works is “memories.” Photographs are records. We take photos just because we have something before our eyes that we feel like keeping as a memory. Our memories are a kind of record. Memories as records are the concept of my works submitted to this contest.
Speaking of my memories, the most impressive are those of my first date. We went to the sea and walked along the beach together. The beach was very beautiful, but as night advanced, the wind blew so much harder as to cause waves to make big splashes before our eyes. It was surely a scary sight, but as I tried to remember the scene later, only bright and exhilarating images came up somehow. The scary images of the sea were hidden by that exhilaration. This kind of thing can happen occasionally.
With my current works, I pasted an A4-size print on an A3-size print. I dared to lay and paste a print over another. I felt overlaying a photo and hiding some space of the photo below would stir the viewer’s imagination and curiosity, which in turn would generate a mystical relationship between the two photos.
Today, anyone can readily take photos by means such as using a smartphone camera and freely publish what they want to keep as memories by uploading them on SNS and the like. As a photographer in such a day and age, I’d like to photograph beautiful things and leave them. I’d also like to develop new forms of photographic expression to produce images I’ve never seen before, or images without déjà vu. It is for this purpose that I’m willing to accumulate new experiences by going to places I’ve never been to and talking with people I’ve never met before.
I sensed some elements of your analogue approach coming through. So I talked with Ms. O’Toole, who agreed on this point. There are cases where we feel urged to take photos simply because something in the subject hangs in our mind although we are unable to explain why at the time; however, we can understand our works later as we adjust our thinking with the passage of time or we grow older. I’d like you to remember the importance of presentation if you are to establish yourself as a professional photographer. I wish you had looked at your works more objectively and talked more about what you wanted to do and express.
Selector’s Comment
Message from Erin O’Toole, Selector
Congratulations on your selection as a candidate for the Grand Prize. It was a pity I am absent and couldn’t see your works in person. But I found your collages very daring and outstanding among all entries. Best wishes for your continued success.