Editing with Aya Takada

From the series "Tōjinbō" © Aya Takada

We are talking to a range of photographers, photo editors, professors of photography, book designers and others about the physical process of editing images. Selecting, sequencing and laying out photographs - be it for a magazine, book, online site or gallery presentation - seems something of a mysterious process for many photographers and a process that seems perhaps hard to give words to. I haven't found much written about the process and that's exactly why I'm excited to see what comes up in this series.

We started the conversation with Rob Haggart, Ashley Kauschinger, Jeff Rich, Miska Draskoczy and Kevin WY Lee. Today we continue with Aya Takada.

Born in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, Takada is a graduate of Visual Arts Tokyo and has had numerous solo exhibitions, beginning in 1994. Her work has been featured on Japan Exposures, Street Level Japan and HotShoe. A review of her US debut exhibition at Benedictine University was reviewed by John Sevigny here. She has published a number of her bodies of work as photobooks including AREA, Fragrance Petit and TAMAKO.

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From the series "TAMAKO" © Aya Takada

Editor's Note: We worked hard on establishing a translation, but parts remain rough, especially the first question. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

fototazo: Tell us a little about yourself and what area of photography you work in.

Aya Takada: After graduating from Tokyo Visual Arts, I made printed photographs published in four tabloid editions from 1998 to 1999. I participated in an independent gallery in Shinjuku as a management member from 2001 to 2005. I gained experience in layouts and the editing of photographs there. The places I photographed during these several years aren't mainly from inner city Japan, famous tourist attractions and the places which the country is famous for; but on the contrary, places people have left, abandoned.

From the series "TAMAKO" © Aya Takada

f: How do you select images to work with from a larger group? What criteria do you use?

AT: First, I will go back to my recollection from the time of shooting. At the time of shooting, when I was closer to the state of the subject, and with respect to the image that does not change from the time of shooting. I choose the photographs that have faithfully reproduced the subject. One of the criteria I use to select photographs is the corporeal sense of the place I was shooting. Surprise, impression and fear. Pure sense. When a vivid impression was left while shooting, this photograph is inevitably chosen.

f: Talk with us about how you begin to organize and sequence the images that you have selected in relationship to each other - as well as to text if there’s text.

AT: This one is simple. These are more or less sequenced by the passage of time. Old photographs will be at the beginning, new photographs aligned behind them. In my series, time is one of the most important axes for sequencing.

From the series "WATAKANO" © Aya Takada

f: How do you consider the balancing of formal qualities in the photographs with the content/narrative of the series as a whole as you select and sequence a series?

AT: As in the answer to the previous question, of all the variables, it is a visual balance of the photograph that should be given priority, the photograph that roughly captures the recollections I have of observing a shooting location and the passage of time for sequencing. To give priority to the accidental elements which a photograph itself might have, I prefer to use methods such as the panel layout, in which I intentionally sequence static images according to a predetermined set of patterns. I think abstract photographs can be more easily understood in the form of a movie by sequencing them individually in a stop-motion pattern. Even if there is a narrative in a series, a story isn’t emphasized, because it exists as a fragmentary scene of a story. I am also thinking of choosing photographs from each of these series and re-editing them in the future.

From the series "ISLAND" © Aya Takada

From the series "ISLAND" © Aya Takada

f: What are common issues, problems and questions that unfold for you during the process of laying things out?

AT: The problem is to work to locate the piece that appears to be faithful to the original scene from a huge edit of photographs. There are a lot of prolonged patterns in my recent series, and these require labor more than shooting. I feel very inefficient, but I haven't found any better way yet.

f: How do you know when a layout is done?

AT: When a new photographic series begins, it occurs naturally. There is little conceptual consideration at the initial stage. This process leads to the finish with an assembly of the pieces collected while shooting. These are like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. When I find I do not have enough pieces, I shoot again. If it is unclear, I work more whimsically. Sometimes I may not be able to finish for years. Just as a start occurs naturally, so a finish often also comes naturally. When a shooting location is destroyed, this can also mean a series is over.

From the series "FU-RIN" © Aya Takada

f: What are common mistakes you see in editing?

AT: While not necessarily affirming that to do so is a mistake, I would say dramatically reconfiguring the series intentionally. This is because I believe that simply put, if there is too much staging and deformation involved, the original physical value of the subject will be lost.

f: Finally, what is the best advice you’ve ever gotten about editing?

AT: Repeat the work, perseveringly.

From the series "FU-RIN" © Aya Takada

From the series "FU-RIN" © Aya Takada

From the series "FU-RIN" © Aya Takada

From the series "FU-RIN" © Aya Takada

From the series "FU-RIN" © Aya Takada

Dan Abbe Selects

From the series "FU-RIN" © Aya Takada

The premise here is simple: to ask a curator, blogger, editor, photographer or other person involved in contemporary photography to select five portfolios of work that they are currently excited about to recommend to the rest of us, placing emphasis - ideally - on work that hasn't seen heavy rotation online. The portfolios are not presented in any sort of order.

The series comes from a belief that the Internet has a tendency to briefly cohere around certain projects and, longer-term, establish its own canon of photographers, distinct and separate from the gallery and museum canons.

While these dynamics have advantages, they also have the expense of promoting a limited number of projects on a large scale, frequently overshadowing other projects equal in quality. This series, then, seeks in particular to look for great photography that counterbalances heavily distributed projects. It also is part of a general interest I have for this site to go behind the limits of my single vision, personal knowledge and time.

Today's guest is Dan Abbe.

Abbe is a photography writer born in San Francisco in 1984; he moved to Tokyo in 2009. In the fall 2014 he will begin a program in Art History at UCLA.

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From the series "On the Rocks" © Kyoungtae Kim

Kyoungtae Kim, "On the Rocks"

This simple project, published as a book by the Seoul bookshop Your Mind, really impressed me when I saw it at the Tokyo Art Book Fair last year. The title is something of a deception, if you look through the series you'll come to see why.

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From the series "Sakhalin" © Mihoko Tsujita

Mihoko Tsujita, "Sakhalin"

Tsujita has been working on a long-term project in which she visits the Russian city of Sakhalin, where her Japanese-born grandmother spent a number of years. She has committed herself to this project to such a degree that she moved to Japan's northernmost island, Hokkaido, in order to continue her research and shooting. Her website is fairly new, and I'm hoping that it will continue to develop as a kind of open notebook for the project.

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From the series "FU-RIN" © Aya Takada

Aya Takada, "FU-RIN"

This is a work in progress, but I think it blows away most of the ruin photography that's out there. Takada is connected to the orthodox tradition of Japanese street photography, so it is interesting to see her branch out in this way.

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From the series "Drawing a Line" © Wataru Yamamoto

Wataru Yamamoto, "Drawing a Line"

I published Wataru's book so I'm terribly biased, but I think he has been a breath of fresh air here in Japan; he treats photography with a lightness that is appropriate. Of course, he's interested in photography's history and technical qualities, but this interest doesn't bog his work down. He's really only just getting started, and he now has the backing of the excellent Tokyo gallery Yumiko Chiba Associates.

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From the series "SOLE (in-progress)" © Skylar Blum

Skylar Blum, "SOLE (in-progress)"

An "in-progress" work that now appears to have reached some sort of completion, given that Blum has published it as a book. In any case, I think the appeal of this series is watching Blum work things out for himself; the layout of the images online looks sort of like what Wolfgang Tillmans has done with his recent digital work.

The Image: Thomas Jorion, "Fukkatsu"

I did this image in 2008, on the island Gunkanjima, when I went to Japan for the first time. I was fascinated by this island, uninhabited since 1974. My trip was motivated only by this visit. However, I keep in my mind a memory of this trip that was a mix of both pleasure and fear. To walk among ghostly buildings is actually not what I'm interested in. On the contrary, I have realized that I was attracted by the "reborn" aspect of the place. This rebirth is visible thanks to the insects and birds that made this place their home, and also by the plants that have grown and covered the buildings. I took this picture using the Mamiya I used back then, in the last few minutes before leaving the island. These trees that grow in between the buildings, searching for the light, are fascinating to me. This mixture of minerals and plants summarizes everything I like to take pictures of.

This picture is part of my series called "Konbini." This series talks about consumerism in Japanese society and its excesses such as ending mining exploitation on this island in favor of coal importation, even if it meant abandoning everything on site. Indeed, we can't see it in this picture, but the apartments were left as is and are filled with previous owners' personal effects. That's what I talk about with this series. Consumerism pushes us to create more, in order to buy more, and then throw away more. It never ends. Today, it is a speech that begins to find its echo, but it seems important to me to keep on illustrating it through images such as these.

Now with a bit of perspective, I always look at this picture with the same pleasure. Since then, I have had the luck to visit other places that have fascinated me and mixed all the ingredients that I love in photographs. I'm in the process of making a book with an editor, that will be published in October 2013. It traces back over the last six years of my photography. I am happy that this picture is part of it.

- Thomas Jorion

133: Nathalie Daoust

Nathalie Daoust
Cat, from the series "Tokyo Hotel Story"
2009

Series statement
Nathalie Daoust’s latest project, Tokyo Hotel Story, continues her exploration of female sexuality and gender stereotypes. Spending several months living in Alpha In, one of the biggest "love hotels" in Japan, Daoust made intimate portraits of 39 women in hotel rooms, surrounded by the specialist equipment and dressed in the regalia that define their trade. Daoust believes numerous challenges still exist in terms of confronting deep-rooted stereotypes of gender-roles. Her work helps her to delve beyond taboos while showing the universal human desire to escape reality and create fantasy worlds that often oscillate between dream, reality and perversion.

International Site Profiles: reminders - I WAS THERE

We're following that post with a series of short profiles that will collectively provide a starting point for an exploration of international blogs, online magazines, and pages. We began by looking at Kilele, We Take Pictures Too, Arab Image Foundation, Greater Middle East Photo, Space Cadet, Street Level Japan, Kantor Berita MES 56, Japan Exposures, Invisible Photographer Asia, my new notebook, oitzarisme, La Fototeca, ZoneZero, and Panoramica Galerie.

Today we continue with a look at Japan-based reminders: I WAS THERE.

THE BASICS
Site: reminders: I WAS THERE
Founding Publishers: Yumi Goto, Masaru Goto, and Kosuke Okahara
Location: Japan
Recommended sample post: I WAS THERE #73 DAICHI KODA
Frequency of posts: Low, 2-4 per month
Founded: February 2010
Last updated: January 2012
In a sentence: The site presents single images accompanied by the story of the "behind the lens" experience of making the image.

reminders: I WAS THERE aims to present images that the photographer has a particular personal connection with, giving a textual account of the experience of making the photograph in both Japanese and English. It's a formula used on other sites, including here on fototazo as "The Image" and on Flak Photo as "Flak Photo Stories," but on reminders: I WAS THERE the emphasis is on Japanese photographers in particular and serves as an entryway into contemporary work by young Japanese photographers.

The site sidebar also lists various workshops and other upcoming events in Japan.

International Site Profiles: my new notebook

In an opinion piece on the limitations of access to crowdfunding projects, we made an argument for taking the initiative to explore sites that promote photographers from countries and cultures less frequently seen.

We're following that post with a series of short profiles that will collectively provide a starting point for an exploration of international blogs, online magazines, and pages. We began by looking at Kilele, We Take Pictures Too, Arab Image Foundation, Greater Middle East Photo, Space Cadet, Street Level Japan, Kantor Berita MES 56, Japan Exposures, and Invisible Photographer Asia. Today we return to Japan for a look at my new notebook.

THE BASICS
Site: my new notebook
Founding publisher: Ken Iseki
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Recommended sample post: Japanese Photography in the 1980s: Shoji Ueda / Mode in Dune (1983)
Frequency of posts: High - averages about a post a day
Founded: July 2010
Last updated: April 2012
In a sentence: A "bridge" site that aims to introduce international photographers and photobooks to Japanese readers as well as to introduce Japanese photobooks to overseas readers.

As Dan Abbe has pointed out in several articles on his site Street Level Japan, photography blog culture in Japan is at a nascent stage and much online information produced in Japan is geared for a Japanese audience.

my new notebook, originally written just in Japanese but now in English as well, functions as a rare site that aims to increase the flow of information into and out of Japan. It has become one of the leading sites for the exploration of Japanese photography online. Posts lean towards photobooks, but also explore exhibitions and the photographic history of Japan and Western photography.

Posts are simple and straightforward, a presentation of links, images, facts, and single sentence comments. The site serves as a way to discover new names and learn about the landscape of Japanese photography, both past and present.

Along the righthand sidebar below "My Tweets" are some important boxes for site navigation that are not translated. In descending order they are: Popular Articles, Categories, and Archives.

Ken Iseki can be followed on Twitter here - although he forewarns 90% of his tweets are in Japanese.

International Site Profiles: Japan Exposures

In an opinion piece on the limitations of access to crowdfunding projects, we made an argument for taking the initiative to explore sites that promote photographers from countries and cultures less frequently seen.

We're following that post with a series of short profiles that will collectively provide a starting point for an exploration of international blogs, online magazines, and pages. We began by looking at Kilele, We Take Pictures Too, Arab Image Foundation, Greater Middle East Photo, Space Cadet, Street Level Japan, and Kantor Berita MES 56. We continue the series today with a snapshot look at Japan Exposures.

THE BASICS
Site: Japan Exposures
Edited and published by: Dirk Rösler and Kurt Easterwood
Location: Japan
Recommended sample post: Japan in the 60s and 70s - through 4 photobooks
Frequency of posts: Low - a post or two monthly
Last updated: March 2012
In a sentence: A grab bag with everything from photographer portfolios and video photobook reviews to services such as equipment repair, photobook resales, and tech reviews.

Japan Exposures bills itself as "a personal introduction to Japanese Photography."  Rösler and Easterwood are ex-pats based in Japan who have built a multi-faceted and eclectic site, offering their expertise and services on, well, basically everything. They post exhibition reviews, write informational posts on historical photographers, feature a gallery on the site, and do video photobook reviews. They particularly focus on Japanese photobooks, but by no means is this a singular focus of the site.

Rösler and Easterwoo also offer books and camera equipment for sale that they source from Japanese stores and resell with a minimal service fee, giving access to the Japanese market at what they say are prices below eBay or US resale prices. They also receive cameras for repair that they send to the appropriate shop, especially useful for odd parts and brands no longer manufactured.

Japan Exposures can be followed on Twitter and Facebook. They also have a Tumblr page.

International Site Profiles: Street Level Japan

In a recent opinion piece on the limitations of access to crowdfunding projects, we made an argument for taking the initiative to explore sites that promote photographers from countries and cultures less frequently seen. We're following that post with a series of short profiles that will collectively provide a starting point for an exploration of international blogs, online magazines, and pages. We began by looking at Kilele, We Take Pictures Too, Arab Image Foundation, Greater Middle East Photo, and Space Cadet. Today we take a snapshot look at Street Level Japan.

Street Level Japan is run by Dan Abbe. He writes in a recent post that his prime motivation for running the blog is the amount of work that remains trapped in Japan. Posts frequently cross-reference other links and sites making it a good entryway into the country's online photography world. His posts range widely - as a sample, recent entries cover a Japanese photo award, a show on emerging female Japanese photographers at an Indiana gallery, a look at the recently deceased Yasuhiro Ishimoto, and the question of a whether there is a bright "future" for Japanese photography. This diversity helps give a sense of the overall contemporary photographic landscape of the country.

On the left sidebar, towards the bottom, is a link to a very well laid out Google map of Tokyo photography sites, a screenshot of which is below. On the right sidebar are links for exploring more Japanese and Chinese sites as well as a handful of his favorites from other areas of the world.

International Site Profiles: Space Cadet

In an opinion piece posted recently on the limitations of access to crowdfunding projects, we made an argument for taking the initiative to explore sites that promote photographers from countries and cultures less frequently seen. We're following that post with a series of short profiles that will collectively provide a starting point for this exploration of international blogs, online magazines and pages. We began by looking at Kilele, We Take Pictures Too, Arab Image Foundation, and Greater Middle East Photo. Today we continue with Space Cadet.

Space Cadet, launched in 2011 to introduce new Japanese photography to the international community, is a straight-forward presentation of photographer portfolios and interviews. The site itself is in both English and Japanese, but unfortunately the interviews have not been translated. Portfolios are accompanied by a site link for each artist represented - click the "HP" button next to the photographer's name on their portfolio page - and serve as a way to further explore. It adds new work regularly.

Space Cadet can be found on Facebook.

The Image: Hiroshi Watanabe, "Flying Octopus, Akashi, Japan"

© Hiroshi Watanabe, Flying Octopus, Akashi, Japan, 2006

Hiroshi Watanabe: This photograph titled "Flying Octopus, Akashi, Japan" was taken in a city named Akashi in the western part of Japan, west of Kobe. In its fishing port, octopuses are caught in the summer, and stretched and dried under the sun. When it is dried and hardened, the shape is retained and it looks like a kite. People shred it and bite into it for taste and flavor. It is a Japanese version of US beef jerky. It is interesting to know that octopus in Japanese is "tako" and that the word also means "kite," although the Kanji (Chinese character writing that Japanese use) for each are different. I doubt dried octopus was once used as a kite, but they probably used the same word as they look very similar.

The Image: Ontoshiki, "Memories Awashed"

"Memories Awashed" is a personal account of the day I spent on the tsunami ravaged coast of Arahama and Wakayabashi, in Miyagi prefecture.

At the time, I still hadn't discovered the reason for me going there but I knew there was a reason that I felt a pull, an uncontrollable urge to be there. Yet walking around witnessing such a catastrophe before my eyes, I felt hopeless and clueless. I walked away from the destruction and toward the beach in a moment of retreat and reflection when suddenly a group of monks appeared and gathered near the coastline right in front of the ocean. They started to play their musical instruments while making chants and prayers of hope which echoed with the ocean breeze. While I witnessed this moment, it hit me. I was there not to bring images of destruction to the world but images of hope. For even though the people of these towns may have lost everything they still remain resilient and will persevere through these difficult times with endless hope and determination. I needed to reflect this through my images as a tribute to them.

If you would like to see the complete series, you can go to my website or purchase the book.

- Ontoshiki

A Question About: Provoke

The question: What was Provoke magazine and why was it important?

The respondent: Marc Feustel is an independent curator, writer and blogger based in Paris. A specialist in Japanese photography, he is the author of Japan: A Self-Portrait, Photographs 1945-1964 (Flammarion, 2004) and the founder of Studio Equis, an organisation devoted to broadening access to the visual arts between different cultures, with a focus on the relationship between Japan and the West. He writes for several photographic publications including European Photography, Foam, Fantom, Look and VU MAG and blogs at www.eyecurious.com.

The response: Provoke was a magazine founded in Japan in 1968 by the photographer and writer Takuma Nakahira, the poet Takahiko Okada, the photographer Yutaka Takanashi and the art critic Koji Taki (although Daido Moriyama is maybe the name most commonly associated with Provoke, he didn't come on board until the second issue of the magazine). Araki famously said that he was "jealous of Provoke" and wanted to join them but wasn't allowed. Although it was very short-lived, lasting only three issues, it came to define a generation of Japanese photography. The style associated with Provoke was known as are, bure, bokeh (rough, blurry, out-of-focus), a style which lasted far beyond Provoke's short lifetime and which is still used by many photographers today. Beyond the are, bure, bokeh aesthetic, the philosophy of the magazine was based on the same rough, disruptive approach, mirroring the extremely turbulent social and political climate of the late 1960s. Rather than the magazines itself, Provoke is maybe best characterised by two books by Provoke photographers: Moriyama's Shashin yo sayonara (Bye Bye Photography) and Takuma Nakahira's Kitarubeki Kotoba no Tameni (For a Language to Come). Both of these books were an attempt to stretch the limits of the language of vocabulary and to break the existing mould of photography.

Provoke was undoubtedly important, but sometimes I think its importance is overstated as there are many other dynamic periods in Japanese photography (both before and after Provoke), that receive far less attention. For example Shomei Tomatsu, Kikuji Kawada, Ikko Narahara and other photographers of the generation just before Provoke had already rejected the objective associated with documentary photography in the post-war years, creating a "subjective documentary" that laid the ground for the photographers of the Provoke generation. Nonetheless the impact of Provoke on Japanese photography is undeniable. Takashi Homma, one of the most prominent photographers in Japan today, compares the photographic landscape after Provoke to a "burned field," likening it's impact to that of an atomic bomb.

The Image: Hin Chua, "Boso Peninsula, January 2011"

Boso Peninsula, January 2011 © Hin Chua

I made this photograph in Japan in January 2011 by the Pacific coast of the Boso Peninsula. I remember waking up at the crack of dawn and stumbling into the nearest 7-Eleven for supplies before the interminably long two-hour train journey from Tokyo began. I still vividly recall my surroundings as I struggled with my framing by the side of the road. Colossal semi-trailers whizzed by with surprising regularity and unsettlingly close proximity, while above me, a squadron of Chinook helicopters on a training exercise filled the air with a series of resounding thuds. After a few minutes, I finally found the perspective I was searching for, made the exposure and hurried on my way: I still had many miles to explore on foot before twilight arrived.

One constant of my work seems to be that I always move on, both literally and figuratively. I find that in most cases, I have little time to dwell on or return to areas that I photographed; I just don’t have the luxury of the repeated visit. And so it was with this particular place, which subsequently passed almost completely from my memory as the negative sat undeveloped.

Undeveloped and forgotten till what is now known as the Tohoku megathrust earthquake and attendant tsunami struck the region two months later. Gradually, I felt compelled to re-examine the photographs I made there; I had the film developed and scanned and retouched many of the pictures. Much of how I view this particular photograph is now infused with the sense of uncertainty of what may or may not have happened there eight weeks later. I actively avoided thinking about it. Surely I was being the overly sensitive foreigner, desperately seeking to create dramatically tenuous connections with major, literally earth-shaking events? Surely this place was too far from the epicentre to have been affected?

Telling myself to stop being dramatic, I never checked, cocooning myself in the warm embrace of ignorance. Never checked until today when I began to write these words.

As it turns out, the area experienced a "peak tsunami wave height" of 2.5 metres. I have little idea what that means, other than it was sufficient to be classified at an orange level of severity. But I'm sure that nothing really serious happened here, right? I mean, that coastline looks like it could withstand a surge of 2.5 metres, doesn't it? It’s not really that big a deal, compared to the 10-15 metre peaks in Fukushima or Iwate, is it? How big is 2.5 metres, when you think about it? Not enough to really hurt anyone, right?

I still don’t know the answer to these questions, and for the time being at least, I don't want to know.

- Hin Chua