Documenting the Senses

Yamamoto Masaya

“How would you like to try taking photos?” My love affair with the camera began when I was drawing a plaster sculpture at the Toshiba Himeji Gallery and the photographer Sekimoto Toshio approached me with these words. Thirty-four years on, I have noted a few things about photography. Photography should not imitate painting, you should not fret about composition when taking a photo, and you should not get hung up on taking pretty pictures.

As time goes by, everything retreats into the past and becomes a record of time gone by, but the interesting thing about photography is that it captures the reality of that moment faithfully and prints it in permanent form. When using a camera to document your life, you simply snap the shutter, believing the evidence of your senses.

When I take the camera in hand, I feel a burning passion for photography well up. It is a world of wonder, which exquisite timing, angles, and lens work can reveal. I think my own work in the medium is rooted in Watanabe Tsutomu’s book Photography: Expression and Technique. I believe that shooting ordinary life, customs, traditions and festivals means capturing the heart of the Japanese people. Each day I hope to take a picture that zooms in on something faintly felt, gives it shape, and engraves it in the minds of viewers.

March 2014