Photographing the City and the Woman: An Interview with Tadahiko Hisatomi

In his work, Tadahiko Hisatomi isolates his subject from urban chaos — an absurd spin into vignettes of daily life and, as it turned out, a reflection of the photographer’s emotions.

The females in the work of Tadahiko Hisatomi often find themselves in odd situations: lying in the middle of a busy thoroughfare, sitting and standing at random places, lying at the bottom of the stairs as if they slipped and fell. On photographs they look haunting, sometimes even unnerving with their stoic expressions.

It’s a common theme in Hisatomi’s photography. By placing his subjects on familiar situations he creates images that, at once, allows glimpses of daily life and are unusual enough that they are liberated from meaning. His models are often in isolation, dwarfed by the sheer size of the city. Interestingly, he views this as reflection of his own feelings, self-portraits “of the photographer who seems to disappear.”

“I think [it’s] maybe [because] I am lonely,” he confesses.

Born in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1969, Hisatomi currently lives in Tokyo with his cat. But this city is more than just home to the photographer; Tokyo, with all its vibrant citizens, its beauty and flaws, serves as Hisatomi’s biggest inspiration. When photographing on its streets, Hisatomi prefers to take his time and walk. Sometimes he shoots spontaneously, other times he plans everything beforehand.

It’s also interesting to note how Hisatomi avoids using the zoom function on cameras. “Because I am indecisive, I use a single focus lens. But I do not think that it is inconvenient. If anything, zoom function is an inconvenience for you,” he opines.

Hisatomi has been into photography for more than two decades now, capturing a “lived-feel and chaos” in his work and striving to make images that would make anyone want to see it more than once. He learned photography by himself with a used single lens reflex that he bought on impulse. Nowadays he photographs with a Pentax 67 and a Nikon F100, with 99% of his work created on film.

All information and photographs were provided to Lomography by Tadahiko Hisatomi and used in this article with permission. To see more of Hisatomi’s work, please visit his website .

작성자 Julien Matabuena 작성일 2015-06-24 카테고리 #사람 #lifestyle #interview #japan #tadahiko-hisatomi