Signs


  • Photographer
    Fumio Tanai
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Company/Studios
    Free-lance
  • Date of Photograph
    2010

Student / Teacher / Translator / Soldier / Photographer

Story

In the present day, we have shifted to Internet society where the world can be connected to instantly, “The relationship between human existence, place and identity” has become a common human theme.
I lived in London and got to know people with various views of the world, and I began to photograph the people who live there, in their own rooms. I had them sit down on a chair and turn to the front diagonally. Through this method, although this process of photography was made a “law” whereby the freedom of expression was restrained, I trust the arbitrary sight of the subject, at the same time, is regulated too. Consequently these images can be compared. And I did 100 portraits.

The emotional gray area between “freedom and captivity” appears in the room where an immigrant lives. The image seems a shell of that internal state when I photograph the room and the person in such relation.

In the world of “Zen”, “no captivity” is “no mind” which in brief means it visits when in the state of thinking and seeing nothing; in the ultimate, it brings self-discovery. “Zen” is the repeated dialogue with spirit which renews the relationship between “Self ” and the world that surrounds oneself through meditation.
I had experience in ascetic training of “Zen” a few times, which involved facing “Self Identity” which is a concept maintained in a persons heart “I am someone and what should I do?” and it overlaps with a common human theme which I mentioned in the beginning of the sentence.
“Zen” does not originally have doctrine, dogma. In other words, there is a direct approach to essence beyond words through the ascetic practices of contemplation without putting trust on words and the letter.
Photographs also have the potential to capture that which is ordinarily hidden in concrete objects, it is the act of photographing itself, which uncovers or reveals essence.

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