Skorj

After a long day a man walks home into the blinding snow.

A strange metal and glass machine invites people to question its forgotten and perhaps slightly creepy use.

A small business hotel in the shadow of the tower.

The oldest haikyo I have explored in quite some time.

A man who sitting in the shade with himself and a cold glass of black coffee commented today was chotto mushi-atsuii.

One hundred year old hardware in the old generator house.

On a hot summer day two friends take the time to pose with their taxi.

With the smell of chips and rain in the air a lost boat waits for the tide in a part of the country that will forever be England

In a long lost room a dusty telephone waiting for the calls no more.

A few oba-san scurry off giggling to find tea and some warmth from Mejiro-eki.

A quiet little shop so full of old books I had to creep past piles taller than me.

An abandoned ropeway engine room stands still and forgotten for over thirty years.

A first grade school desk with its little chair sits inside in the rain.

A proud young lad by himself on the way to school for the day.

A lost neko lay down on the tatami to die in the cold alone.

A man who has probably swept this same piece of road for the last fifty years.

Someones dreams slowly decay with the buildings.

A local priest awaits the coming of the o-bon spirits.

One million photographs a day and none come close to capturing the greatness.

A lonely set of houses along a lonely set of rocks filled with a lonely set of people.

A nicely dressed man who told me he was going to live in the United States.

From `665` solo exhibition - Nagune - March 2008. 665 中判ポラロイドカメラを使う事は私にとって写真を撮るという以上にインスタントフィルムの持つ技術的メリットの恩恵をもたらしてくれる......ポラロイドタイプ665というフィルムは1ショットごとにポジプリントと高画質のネガを同時に生成してくれるのだ。今回の個展のコレクションではこの大判ネガを使った作品を展示するのだが、撮影時には撮りっぱなしでそのまま現場を立ち去るのではなく、被写体になってくれた人たちに必ずポジプリント側を渡すというスタイルを貫いてきた。こうすることで写真というものの円環構造が成り立つという私の考えに基づいている.....それぞれの人は被写体として撮られる側でありながら次の瞬間にはその写真を見る側、つまり観察者という関係性をも持つのだ。私は今は廃虚となってしまった建造物の抱く静寂に魅了されている。その静寂の奥からはかつてその建物が担っていた本来の役割、栄枯盛衰の歴史が想像できるからだ。その場を生きていた人々と同じく、建物にも生きた歴史の証があり、写真を通して私が捉えようとし続けてきたのはその＜イメージ＞のみならず、遺棄された空間に眠る感情…夢・孤独感・孤立・腐朽というものである。ポラロイドタイプ665フィルムにはその場に見えるイメージ以上の＜場の感情＞というべきものまでが写し取られる。私にとって写真とは、しばしば時間や空間を超越した感情を表出させ、ごく日常的なものを何か特別なものへと昇華させた時にこそ意味を持つと考えている。ポラロイド社は既にこのタイプ665というフィルムの生産を完了してしまった。それゆえに、今回の個展は奇しくも被写体となった人やモノの「インスタントな思い出」の集大成にとどまらず、665という比類の無いフィルムの記憶を焼き付ける試みなのだ。 665 Working with a medium format Polaroid camera allows me to take photographs and to receive the additional technical benefit of the instant film - each exposure of Polaroid Type-665 makes a positive print and a high definition negative. I use the enlarged negative to produce the photographs in this collection, and instead of taking the photograph away with me in the camera, I give the positive print to the people I have photographed. This makes a complete photographic circle - as each participates first as a subject, then as a spectator of the photograph as well. I am fascinated by the tranquility of abandoned buildings, to feel their history and to imagine their lives and the functions they fulfilled. Like the people who once used them, they have a history, and with my photographs I try and capture more than the image, but also the feelings of their abandoned spaces – the dreams, the feelings of loneliness, solitude and decay. Type-665 allows me to add more than the image, but to also include some of the feelings of these lost places as well. For me, photography is successful when it can promote the ordinary to something special, eliciting emotion, and perhaps if it is indiscriminate in time & place too. Polaroid no longer makes Type-665, so these photographs are a collection of not only the instant memories of their subjects, but also a memory of a unique film – 665. Skorj – (translated by Ako Specht). All images © Mark Skorji.