‘It’s not enough that [the photograph] is beautiful. If it doesn’t move my heart, it won’t move anyone else’s heart.’ – Rinko Kawauchi
Ever since photography made its way to Japan in the Edo period (1615-1868), it has evolved and inspired many photographers around the world. It’s simple, yet fascinating style, has the ability to draw a multitude of emotions and feelings through its compositions. In this study, I will be exploring the photographer Rinko Kawauchi, investigating how she uses her camera to present inexplicable comfort and surrealism. Additionally, I will analyse Japanese photographers such as Masahisa Fukase and Daido Moriyama,discovering how their work has influenced and advanced Kawauchi’s work.
Photography began on the southern island of Kyushu, and knowledge about the subject was scarce. This meant that early enthusiasts relied on their own encounters with foreign professionals to gain the skills. The Daguerreotype, was the first successful photography process, whereby a highly detailed image was created on a sheet of copper and plated with a fine coat of silver. There was no use of negatives and this process was a direct-positive process. This method reached Japan in 1846, but it took different clans around four years to create a successful Daguerreotype. Photography was completely black and white during the nineteenth century. Japanese photographs, that were typically used for tourism, were frequently treated with applications of colour. They transformed basic images to bright, eye capturing images through the use of oil paints: turning cherry blossom trees pink and draping wisteria blue. Japanese photographers carried these traditions through the years, even after the invention of colour photography, because it was part of the culture to have to freedom to colour images freely, using their imagination [1]. The idea of a portable souvenir was popular for visiting travellers, and the tourists seemed to be interested in perceived ideas of traditional Japanese culture, rather than their society. The unique aesthetic of Japan caused a need for escapism for the tourists, avoiding the modernizing industrial society. The photographs captured a beautiful utopia, displaying temples, shines, cherry blossoms and more. From Mount Fuji; a popular tourist destination that presented an almost fantasy world [2]. A century later, photography was used as an ‘eye witness’ for the bombing in Nagasaki, 1945, capturing the devastating events.
In 1863, Felice Beato, an Italian-British photographer, ventured to Japan, joining his friend in Yokohama. Their mission was to commercialise “Japonisme” for the western viewers that visited the country. In his time working there, he introduced the hand-coloured photographs, working with popular and talented Japanese painters [2]. In the late 1960s, Yoshio Watanabe, one of the most well-known photographers, (after photographing Ise Shrine in World War Two), raised the question, “What should a photographer be?”, when the Tokyo demonstrators were in mass protest of the renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. Two eras of photographers advocated for a public evaluation of the wartime accountability associated with the medium. This resulted in the exhibition Shashin 100 nen-Nihonjin ni yoru shashin hyogen no rekishiten (A Century of Japanese Photography). This was one of the most crucial photography shows in the twentieth century and it displayed one hundred years of Japanese photographers’ works. This art movement was the first presentation to reflect on their contributions to Japanese fascism during World War II. The book produced from this movement was the first great volume to give Japanese photography an international audience. [3]
Rinko Kawauchi was not raised in a creative atmosphere, and she would find herself escaping to read at the library. Although she wasn’t interested in images as a child, she was interested in koro-pok-guru. Books would take her into a different reality, and this was the start of her creative journey. Today her photos now correlate to the experience she had as a child, leading the viewer on a journey and escaping the harsh life surrounding us, transporting the viewer into Kawauchi’s mind and how she sees the world in a more beautiful and still way [4]. Her interest in books is seen in her priority of creating an experience through a photobook; such as Illuminance. She states that ‘books connect us to the present’ [5] because of the choice the viewer has in flipping the page; it allows you to have control over your experience. Through this, Kawauchi intends for the reader to grow a ‘connection to (her) images’ [5]. Whilst in high school her first photograph was taken with a compact camera. It was an image of the sea, and she felt that she had no connection with the camera. Having taken photography classes, she later found an emotional experience which linked her to her images. She was self-motivated to create her own style because she felt she couldn’t express her work through a commercial photography job [4]. The necessity for her own style and meaning could have been influenced by the Japanese aesthetic Wabi-Sabi; the aesthetic defined as the beauty of things, “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” [6]. Kawauchi’s movement, captured in her stills connects with this aesthetic, framing the everyday experiences, whether ugly or beautiful, death or new life. Wabi-Sabi considers things to be beautiful in their transience, correlating to her work, such as Illuminance, holding a timeline of journeys throughout fifteen years of her life. Witnessing the blooming of a flower, the light hitting steps, or the death of an animal, Kawauchi uses this Japanese aesthetic to present her ethnicity and the beauty of life through her work.
Kawachi’s work has a theme of fragility throughout Illuminance, and other series of hers, which is presented through her use of light. Many of her images are flooded with warming light or reflection, illuminating the photograph. The effect of this presents subjects in her images as frail, rather than hard and stable, linking with her motif of telling the story of life through her work. The fast-paced movement of life could be viewed as delicate, because time disappears quickly, and death is always in the imminent future. This idea connects with Kawauchi’s work, capturing stillness during times of movement in life, and might be her attempt to pause and admire what is in front of her. I am exploring nostalgia in my work, presenting the loss of childhood memories and the reflection of places that revive these memories. Kawauchi’s use of metaphors and meaning throughout Illuminance has inspired me to use light and compositions to grasp the emotional and visceral feeling of this loss. Being able to hold a moment in your hand on a piece of paper in a book, with its physical qualities, creates an intimate and personal escape for the reader to take a moment and step away from life, falling into the emotions that the images provoke. This feeling correlates with Wabi-Sabi and the aesthetics of the impermanent moments.
Kawauchi has been widely influenced by historical photographers, such as Masahisa Fukase and Daido Moriyama. Both photographers have left an impactful mark on the capturing of the Japanese landscape, with their influence on Kawauchi’s work being clear. Although her work is unique for its unique style, there are obvious imprints of the typical elements of these two Japanese photographers. Fukase is well known for his very personal, emotional images. One of his series named, ‘Ravens’, published in 1986, was influenced by an melancholy experience which he endured. His divorce triggered the series to be developed, resulting in a range of emotional photos. The series took eleven years to make, collecting a sum of images that portrayed the feelings he felt. I find this very similar to Kawauchi’s work, because his images tell a story beyond the composition [7]. It is not just one or two shoots that completed the series, but images from a journey over the course of a mournful part of his life. There is a similar theme of solitude, morality and the passage of time, seen in both of their works, capturing the ordinary as extraordinary and meaningful; they transform their experiences into a use for introspection, embracing the impermanence discovered in everyday life [8]. Fukase has the ability to capture the movement of life in collections of still images, influencing Kawauchi to do the same, attaining emotional depth and beauty.
‘To focus on reality or be concerned with memory, choices that, at first glance, seem opposite are, in fact, identical twins for me’ – Daido Moriyama
Daido Moriyama was also a popular Japanese artist in the 1960’s and 1970s, who inspired movement. He is admired for his raw and gritty street photography. Moriyama’s work is primarily black and white, enriched with depth, shadow and rather chaotic compositions, heavily juxtaposing with Kawauchi’s more soft, milky and contemplative style. However, although their work is compositionally opposite, there is a resemblance of their shared interest with the ordinary and the visceral. Moriyama’s tendency to capture the frenzy of movement and chaos in the streets has the possibility of inspiring Kawauchi’s preference for spontaneous and candid shots, both inciting the rawness of authenticity in human experiences. Moriyama’s style can be viewed as avant-garde, provoking movement and new ideas. Moriyama breaks the traditional norms of Japanese photography with his contemporary approach, distinguished by his bold angles and dramatic subjects. His style was primarily inspired by the influence of American artists, such as Andy Warhol, which left an obvious mark in his adventurous take on photography [9]. This drastic change from the tradition of Japanese photography is what could have aided Kawauchi in finding her own aesthetic style, different from many Japanese artists, creating a uniqueness to her work.
Overall, it is clear that Kawauchi has developed a distinctive style, inspired by her Japanese culture and the surroundings that she has been brought up in. From reviewing her interviews, I believe that in some ways, her work is exploring the creative realm that she used to escape and enter other realities as a child. In an interview she stated, ‘Our family was under pressure… and I felt it too, so to escape reality I did lots of reading’ [4], which presents the beginning of her escapism through the creative realm. She also stated, ‘People often say that I have a child’s eye’ [10], implying that Kawauchi has an awareness of her need to revive her childlike imagination in her photography. The aesthetics of her culture obviously plays a key role in influencing her work, such as the early Daguerreotypes coloured to create a romanticised, idealistic and colourful worlds that are presented as utopias. Her work holds a resemblance of these historical images, shown through her attempt to present her world as serene and peaceful, similar to these postcards created to draw the viewer in. The aesthetics of Wabi-Sabi flow throughout history, and into her work, inspiring Kawauchi to evolve the Japanese style into her own contemporary approach.
Examples of Kawauchi’s ‘childlike’ images:
Bibliography
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[3] SFMOMA. (n.d.). A Century of Japanese Photography: Historical Reckoning and the Birth of a New Movement. [online] Available at: https://www.sfmoma.org/essay/a-century-of-japanese-photography-historical-reckoning-and-the-birth-of-a-new-movement/ [Accessed 5 Feb. 2024].
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[5] Rinko Kawauchi. (n.d.). Available at: https://rinkokawauchi.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/12/2017_Unseen-Magazine-4.pdf.
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[9] thephotographersgallery.org.uk. (2023). 7 things to know about Daido Moriyama | The Photographers Gallery. [online] Available at: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/7-things-know-about-daido-moriyama.
[10] Mocha, M. (2015). Rinko Kawauchi: Life’s Murmured Whispers. [online] Midtown Mocha. Available at: https://midtownmocha.blog/2015/02/22/rinko-kawauchi-lifes-murmured-whispers/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CPeople%20often%20say%20that%20I [Accessed 5 Feb. 2024].