Chewing Gum and Chocolate, Shomei Tomatsu.
A Photographer is one who stakes everything on looking
A wonderful piece from Shomei Tomatsu in his book ‘Chewing Gum and Chocolate’ that shares some insight into his sensibilities and approach to photography.
“A photographer is sometimes a passerby and sometimes a sojourner. But that only changes his perspective, not the act of continually looking. A photographer cannot cure like a doctor, cannot defend like a lawyer, cannot analyze like a scholar, cannot comfort like a priest, cannot bring laughter like a rakugoka (a comic storyteller), cannot transport like a singer. He can only look. That’s enough. No, that’s all there is. To a photographer, looking is everything. That’s why he must continue looking from start to finish. He gazes at the subject straight on, he faces the world with his whole being transformed into a pair of eyes. A photographer is one who stakes everything on looking.”
Shomei Tomatsu, Taiyo no Empitsu (The Pencil of the Sun), 1975
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I strangely forget how much I love his photographs. Every time I see them again, it feels like experiencing them for the first time.
Photography was invented nearly two centuries ago.
But, as time passes the more missunderstood it seem to be…