Yoshikatsu Fujii

Born and raised in Hiroshima City. Graduated from Tokyo Zokei University of Arts with a BA in Art Film. He began photography work in Tokyo in 2006. His photographic works often deal with historical themes and memory lingering on in contemporary events.

Fujii’s project “Red String,” was highly inspired by his parents’ divorce, produced a hand-made limited edition photobook. Nominated for several awards, including the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards. The book has been named as one of the best photobooks of 2014 by contributors to numerous publications including TIME magazine.

” This work may be a personalized narrative for myself, but “family” is something that everyone has – a universal theme. There is nothing happier for me than if viewers can insert their own families and freely appreciate the work.”

Yoshikatsu Fujii

I chose to study Yoshikatsu Fujii I felt his images resonated with my experience of parents divorce and he manages to express similar feelings. I thought I would easily be able to use his images as inspiration and effectively respond. I enjoyed the minimal editing and simple montages with the incorporation of aesthetic images just to set the tone. Like him, I want the image content to be centre focus rather than the looks. The mix of colour and black and white, as well as the incorporation of old family photos really spoke to me and it was definitely something I wanted to include into my project.

https://www.yoshikatsufujii.com/red-string

Similar to Yoshikatsu Fujii is….

Mateusz Sarello

Mateusz Sarello was born in 1978 in Warsaw. A Graduate from the Academy of Photography in Warsaw. He is the author of the book “Swell”

Swell is a story of a break-up and of unaccepted loneliness. About going back to the same places and memories that we can’t forget. At first, Sarello was doing a photographic documentary of the baltic sea, when he went through a break-up. His images (and the project itself) turned into a representation of the loneliness and sadness that follows.

“It is never easy to talk about love. There is banality and pretentiousness round every corner. There are, however, authors who can balance successfully on the border of beauty and kitsch. Mateusz Sarełło is certainly one of them.”

 Dariusz Bochenek

I wanted to study Mateusz Sarello as I find the way he laid out his book (the broken spine and the ‘happier’ images first with a gap and the ‘sadder’ images after) and the images using flash interesting and a great way of creating disturbing feeling in a viewer.