Searching for the truth in the photograph Yumi Goto

As many of you know, I have just returned from participating in Bursa Foto Fest in Turkey, where I gave a lecture entitled ‘Searching for Truth in the Photograph’. My lecture introduced five Japanese photographers, including photographers we will feature in upcoming RPS events. We will host Eriko Koga for a curatorial talk on October 15th, and Masaru Tatsuki for another talk session on November 17th. Here on the RPS blog, I would like to share what I said in my lecture.

“Searching for Truth in the Photograph” is my ongoing research project.
Photography is said to be the media that captures the truth, but often that is not exactly true.
The photograph may just represent the photographers’ perspective, understanding or interpretation, which often affects the image.
Photographers may even wait and look for events to happen. Or for a particular moment to come, just as they had expected to capture it.
That means they already had a story, before seeing or knowing the facts, then collected those images along with their prepared story.

Then what is the photograph? And is the truth really contained in it?
Those images which reflect the subject’s real voice and feeling?

I have had great opportunities to learn about photography through my collaboration with photographers and their activities in Asia over the past thirteen years. The projects I have focused on have been related to issues people care about. They raise awareness and alert the general public through images and other visuals.

Photographers with whom I have collaborated take risks, some great, and some small, to capture certain moments. I appreciate and respect their passion and energy, and the question I often ask them is: “Why are you so committed to the subject matter of your photographs?” I always expect the same answer—that there is a personal connection.

To be so intimate with the subject, what is the secret behind the images? Why do the images have to be brought to the public? Sometimes they seem too personal to share, or are even considered taboo.

I am now more interested in researching the answers to these fundamental questions, rather than simply viewing projects or series. Some photographers’ images reveal the answers to my questions.

The photo series that I introduce here seem to have engaged with their subjects to such an extent that the work has affected their lives. The distance between the photographer and subject has diminished so that the photographer is able to have better understanding, which is then reflected in his or her work. It is my hope that in turn, the photographs can engage the audience to promote positive change, whether it is through action or in other ways.

These projects, which are intensely personal, could be completed between the photographers and their subjects and not necessarily go anywhere beyond that—but they do. They are special in part because I see those photographers’ images and subjects’ ideas seem to be in perfect harmony. I mean that the two ideas of both parties engage and crystallize in the form of photography.

Here are five Japanese photographers’ inspiring and remarkable projects that have revealed to me a new way to look at photography, and have inspired me to take a much closer look at the relationship between the people/subjects and the photographers.

I asked each photographer four questions, trying to find out if photos could reflect both the subject’s ideas and photographer’s ideas. The four questions were:

Q1. Why are you so committed to the subject matter of your photographs? Is there a personal connection to the matter?
Q2. What is the secret to creating intimacy with a subject, intimacy that translates to images?
Q3. Why should these images be shown to the public?
Q4. Searching for truth in a photograph, in your series, which image best captures truth and why?

Here is Eriko Koga’s work, entitled “Asakusazenzai”. She met an old couple named Zen and Hana for the first time at the ‘Sanjya Festival’ in Tokyo’s Asakusa district in 2003. Until 2008, for six years, she kept visiting their row house and taking photos of their everyday life. Every time she visited them, she felt the existence of something important, which she couldn’t explain in words. As she got more and more involved in their lives, and closer to them, she realized initially she had only seen the surface of who they were and where they they lived, the old Tokyo district she had photographed before, but now realized had not completely understood. She felt she must somehow try to capture the couple’s lives, and the essence of the Asakusa district, before it was lost and forgotten forever. Thereafter, she devoted herself to the project.

Q1. Why are you so committed to the subject matter of your photographs? Is there a personal connection to the matter?
I was saved by this old couple, Zen and Hana, mentally. Until then I photographed my favorite town Asakusa in black and white, but I realized there was a gap between the Asakusa I photographed and the Asakusa I felt. I felt I had only been able to photograph the surface of Asakusa before I met them.
We had no biological relationship and it was just a coincidence but each time I visited them I learnt a lot that I couldn’t put in words. That was something I wanted to give form to in some way, so I photographed them for six years, from 2003 to 2008. The work kept me coming back to meet them in those days, but another motivation was that I just wanted to see them.

Q2. What is the secret to creating intimacy with a subject, intimacy that translates to images?
You should like the subject (person you are trying to photograph); you should always have love, compassion and respect.
You should photograph them from the heart, never force photographs when the subjects are unwilling.
You should be connected with them as people, never consider them photo models. If there is no trust, they will never open their hearts.

Q3. Why should these images be shown to the public?
If I thought my visual documentation would have no meaning to people, I wouldn’t have taken the photographs. As this old couple, Zen and Hana, saved me, I hope there have been people who might have been saved through my photographs.
When photographs can make invisible or unrealized feelings visible, that’s their greatest success. I would be happy if people can feel something important as a result of seeing these photographs.
I also included their life summary in my book. I wanted to preserve those words, something I couldn’t capture in photographs.

Q4. Searching for truth in a photograph, in your series, which image best captures truth and why?

©Asakusazenzai by Eriko Koga
This photo is the most direct expression of Zen and Hana’s relationship.
I think it shows the history of their life – that they have supported each other always.

About Eriko Koga
1980 Born in Fukuoka, Japan
Working in advertising photography, and as a lecturer and freelance
photographer in Japan. Going to Mt. Koya from 2009 and continuing
shooting for a new work “Issan”. Currently living in Tokyo.
http://kogaeriko.com/