TRAVERSE TOKYO

I find both very fascinating, although I hardly use digital… For my current self, digital would make my ideas towards photography stiff. Regarding the ideas and techniques, I believe overall that it should be more free and flexible. When we can see the photograph that we just took on the monitor during a shoot, I think that the next idea can only be something too thought-out. Of course, I think that the quality of being able to get what we envision is very positive. However, taking Mark Borthwick as an example, you can open the cover of the camera while in the middle of the film and exposing it, or taking pictures while you shake the camera not knowing what it would capture – you can do whatever you want. You can even bury the film that you would use in the ground and rot… By thinking freely and getting something unexpected in the photos, that is what’s the most fun for me at the moment. Of course this has to be based off logic, as well. This is an abstract way of putting it, but I feel there are many digital works which ideas are stiff because of it, and I wish they could become more flexible. For instance, camera manufacturers have now made color profiles for the digital camera, the overall ability of cameras is very high; developing software is excellent; and then in the end we would edit the images on Photoshop. This sets up many obstacles– feeling that there is no possibility of mistakes. In contrast, working in analog, one can easily make mistakes hence there is sense of tension, and all of the cameras are all very unique. In the past film had distinctive characteristics, the lens of the enlarger, the technique of the developing and printing process, and the environment of the temperature and the state of the water all would become relative. That sense of freedom or awareness of not having a program interfere is the greatest appeal. During Paris Photo at the end of last year, I was overwhelmed by the intensity of Diane Arubus’ photography which she printed herself. I strongly realized that the size of digital data could become however many terabytes, the difference with analogue would always be apparent. However, digital continues to grow at a tremendous speed, so unbelievable technology will be invented in the near future, causing a paradigm shift so that digital can express the mysterious quality that analog has, but in 2012, we are not there yet. If the technology of digital cameras becomes a match for what analog is now, I would heavily use digital. Personally, I really like the genre of digital photography; it’s just that currently I believe what I can accomplish with my photography is by analog.

I have heard that young people nowadays say to “make into a photo” when they are printing photos in a service size at a lab somewhere in town. The photos in the computers are just merely data, so they are images at that level, but they are not photographs on a memory device. By printing they would then become and recognized as a photo for the first time – I think the young generation has now unconsciously learned this.

Consequently, I think that photographs only reflect what’s in the core of yourself. The process of the expression is unrestricted. Birds read the air, and they freely explore the sky and fly. You could say I envy that sensation.