Interview with Kazutaka
June 30, 2009
We already talked about the photoshoot that Kazutaka Nagashima did with Sarah Moon last September (you can read about it here). This time we want to focus on a more personal point of view, to give you just a glimpse of what it means for a young photographer - in terms of learning and of professional growth - to shoot with a renowned master in the field. That's why we decided to interview Kazutaka. The purpose of our questions was to understand directly from him what it was like to work with Sarah Moon and to find out what he learned from this experience:
ITS - Can you describe in detail your first meeting with her? What did you tell each other?Kazutaka - She was very kind from the beginning and made me feel at ease. She first said to me "Since you smoke strong cigarettes, I will teach you how to smoke the English way". She told me she liked the concept of the project I enrolled in ITS#SEVEN. She liked the sentences I had used. She said choosing me was a good choice. She impressed me from the beginning with her positive attitude and happy way of talking to me.
Kazutaka - I thought that the subjects she chose during the tour had a wide range of atmospheres. My subjects instead were always an object or a person in the landscape, they could all be expressed in words. That's because I had a limited context and limited time to shoot, so I decided to give myself a rule, and the rule was that my photographic variation would be a material variation of my subject. Sarah instead took photos using her sensitivity.
When I saw the exhibition organised by GQ Italy in Milan, end of September '08, with her photos and mine together, I thought "What a great number of beautiful and strong variations she was capable of capturing in that limited situation". Her photos have great beauty and strength, because they are a lot more beautiful than the real situations she captures. In other words, she is able to find interesting variations and capture them in her photos without necessarily changing her subject. Looking at her photos I realised how huge her background in photography is and how this is the reason why she can now shoot such amazing pictures with no apparent effort. My background compared to hers is poor, and my photos very childish. I feel her photos can communicate in a direct and powerful way to the viewer.
ITS - Are there any similarities you felt with her, professionally as well as personally?Kazutaka - I think we have a similar method in taking pictures. It is a simple method, an orthodox method most people use when taking pictures. I also think that both me and her are hard to categorize into one genre. There are many kinds of photography, from landscape, to portrait, family, documentary and so on and we both probably do not fit completely in one of these. I think we have a similar interest in photography itself.
Kazutaka - We were not actually talking on that hill...because we were taking pictures! But looking at her taking pictures on that hill I thought how obedient photography is in adapting to what you want to shoot. I thought I wanted to see which kind of photos Sarah was taking, and I realised how interesting photography is, that you can choose different cuts, different points of view, in the same situation. That's one interesting aspect of photography.
ITS - You told us you "wrote a letter" to Sarah by taking the pictures...What were you "telling" her when you shot her portrait? What was it that you wanted to capture of her?
Kazutaka - In that moment I didn't want to make a piece of work...I really felt I wanted it to be a souvenir picture for me. I just thought that I would have been sad if I had no picture of her, even if I might have the chance to meet her again. I believe that taking souvenir pictures is one of the most useful things to do when working with a camera.
ITS - Have you remained in touch with her?Kazutaka - The most important thing to me is to keep the photos I did of that experience that I like. I realised that keeping those photos is the most important thing.
By reading Kazutaka's words in this interview the importance of his experience with Sarah Moon is evident. It added new perspectives to his photographic career, and enriched his experience and learning about taking pictures.
We wanted you to read his words because this is an incredible experience and it will be repeated this year: photographer Ari Marcopoulos is going to spend time shooting pictures with the winner of the ITS#EIGHT MINI Clubman Photo Award. Just to understand who we are talking about, Marcopoulos is a photographer who arrived in New York in 1979 and began printing pictures for Andy Warhol, while shooting some of the most intimate images of Jean-Michel Basquiat. During the eighties he was fascinated by the growing hip-hop scene in NY, becoming friendly and taking pictures of popular artists such as Run-DMC. You know the cover of the "Ill Communication" album by The Beastie Boys? Well that's his....
*All photos in this article by photographer Alberto Novelli.
