futoshi miyagi. interesting little interview.

  This is an interesting little interview .  'something new and unexpected' for the traditional photographer still thinking in terms of a single photograph. the masterpiece in terms of the art world influenced idea of photography. 

Your work has focused on the idea of an “incipient audience” as found through the internet and other, especially digital, ways of proliferating information to unknown viewers. Is this awareness of an unknown audience something you would consider a theme in your work?

It’s always somewhere in my mind. I tend to be too self-conscious. Most of the time it’s very silly to be like that, but sometimes the idea of an audience (which may not exist in the first place) sort of fascinates me, so I insert personal narratives and even lies in my works in order to face them and play with them.

In what ways do you gauge the success or failure of a photographic project?

It could be based on the simple aesthetics issue. There are images I just don’t like. But I like to exhibit failures as well. I don’t have a belief in one, single photograph. I’m more interested in the process as a whole, how it grows and brings something new and unexpected.        

http://www.gupmagazine.com/articles/154-interview-with-futoshi-miyagi

Photograph a person, in darkness, with exposure time of one minute or more.

I’ve never faced a subject in a honest manner using photographic media. Sometimes I staged (Strangers), sometimes I went virtual (You were there in front of me). I never thought that I would be qualified to call myself a photographer, in the end, what I wanted from shooting sessions were not photographs themselves, but relationships formed there. Even if the situation was staged, even if the whole thing seemed like a detour, I looked for a possibility. I liked the slowness of the process.

During the time of daguerreotypes (those staged, gentle portraits), when the exposure took minutes, what went through between the photographer and the photographed? During the motionless, awkward minutes, there seemed to be a possibility to create trust and intimacy between the two. A subtle breeze that causes gentle blur. Nevertheless, my digital DSR will finish an exposure within a blink, it can only portray an instant.

I can put the lights off, then. So that the exposure takes much longer. In the dark room, without moving, I face the subject for minutes. The camera will slowly record him with the help of the dimmest of the available lights. Darkness can be an escape, but darkness enables the camera to capture things that elude our poor eyesight. In the forced, nevertheless honest minutes, what sort of relationship will be established between us? And what will the images show?

Futoshi Miyagi, March 2011

http://fmiyagi.com/2011/kankou/