There’s a veritable plethora (or cornucopia, if you prefer) of Japanese photography sites out there, that it’s impossible for me to keep track of them all (the same might be said for the list of Japan-based blogs to the right, but I digress). I don’t have the time, nor always the interest, to be frank, to wade through them. But for the most part, I do find them interesting, or perhaps intriguing might be the better word (which is of course not to say that I find the photography always inspiring, because oftentimes I don’t). I find that a lot of sites have a theme or essay-based schema to them that is unique, and sometimes downright strange. We’re not talking your basic portraits / landscape / still life / etc. categorization here, that’s for sure.
Take for example this site I found today, ssfugnt.com, the digital photography home of one Takehiro Ujiie. He has several photo essays linked up on that page (actually, “mini photo blogs” might be a more apt description). One I was particularly fascinated by, both for the concept as well as the actual photographs, as there are some really nice gems contained within, is an essay entitled “First Food Scene” (the site uses frames, so go to the above link and click on the title). This is a series of photographs Ujiie took over a 3 month period, documenting his visits to various fast food restaurants in Tokyo (and one, interestingly enough, in South Korea), grouped by the day of the visit. (I don’t know if Ujiie’s title for the series is some kind of word play, or if he is mistaking “first food” for “fast food”.) Each day has between around 8-10 shots, featuring the particular establishment Ujiie has visited that day, most taken in a “shoot from the hip” style with the store’s staff and customers seemingly unaware.
From looking at the various days, McDonald’s and Lotteria seem to be Ujiie’s fast food restaurants of choice, although more endemic restaurants like Yoshinoya or train station tachigui (place where one eats while standing) do make appearances. Anyone who has lived in or visited a large Japanese city is familiar with the image of the Japanese worker/commuter, generally male though not exclusively so, hunched over his ramen or udon in a tachigui, more often than not alone with their meal and thoughts. What’s particularly striking about Ujiie’s photos taken in these types of places, although it does permeate all the photos to some extent, is how well this solitariness of the experience of eating out for the customers has been captured.
Not unlike photos taken of passengers on commuter trains à la Walker Evans’ subway photos, there’s something fascinating for me in the way that the photos probe, intentionally or not, the intersection between public and private space that is fundamental to the dining out experience. How people comport themselves in public spaces, on the one hand maintaining a certain public “face” or guard while at the same time trying to carve out a private space which can afford them some small measure of privacy, interests me.
ADDENDUM: Ujiie has another series on his page that is worth checking out, called “Unknown Person,” which comprises a series of shots (again, grouped by day) taken as he follows some presumably unknown (and it should be pointed out, presumably unwitting) person through the streets of Tokyo (with one day’s worth shot in a South Korean city). It’s doubtful the subjects, who are mainly seen from the back, are aware that they’re being, in effect, stalked. With the exception of three days, the subjects are all men, and I think it’s interesting how my feelings of mystery and suspense when viewing the photographs of the men, turned into something not unlike dread when I looked on as women were being followed. (It made me think of Yoko Ono’s film Rape, about a woman happened upon by a film crew, who then follow her relentlessly.) I don’t know what Ujiie has intended with this series, but clearly I, as the viewer, have a different set of assumptions of how these narratives might play out depending on the gender of the subject, and being forced to acknowledge this made the series all the more compelling for me.
