Intro
I always feel urgent about my life, while “search for identity” is a kind of crisis awareness in a sense.
Soon after starting photography in 2017, I spent a lot of time in reflecting on the operation mode of photography instead of keeping researching skills. In my opinion, this was caused by my desire to explore the experience of existentialism and thickness of time to a great extent. While paying attention to these problems for a long term, I have developed subjectivity and self-awareness secretly. In the nature of things, photography is a key opportunity to explore identity and the world instead of a method to make a living at the beginning.
Photos can only bring something indeed as a simple record instead of a kind of art.
– Takuma Nakahira
Artistic photography will guide concepts, while documentary photography will enhance morality. Among art, documentaries and records, records abandoning figures of speech are the most direct and complete photography. Language is the result of reflection after arousing logic and the organization of the world by yourself. Driven by instinct as a record, photography shows the nature as an option for photographers under given conditions and the result of value judgement after observing the self-awareness. Therefore, The significance of these photos lies at why they are taken instead of the actions of taking them. The moment of pressing the shutter is the key. At that time, real environment and inward world can be mixed to a homogeneous and plane visual expression. Photography needs to grasp this chaotic moment and record it before separation, so as to realize a reality, namely, the situation that it’s raining shall be described as the scene that it’s raining instead of other descriptions.
So, Everything undoubtedly happens in an ambiguous field where the self on one side and the world on the other side are dissolved. In addition, the so-called poems were born in this ambiguous field. Language literature is maybe the largest difference between people and animals. However, languages are limited by present vocabularies. Therefore, with regard to the most useful language for the best communication, there is a part hardly to be described. However, these indescribable and unobservable self-awareness segments can be captured by ambiguous photos. These photos are like a cicada slough of self-soul. From another perspective, photography lights up some subconsciousness, which appears self-profile softly. In the meantime, special vocabularies of inner dialogues are created and used. In virtue of this poetry language, photographers can pry into and set up identity.
After selecting photography as a self-writing method, i am personalizing the real world maximally. However, the amplification of personal experience cannot replace social experience. These photos are projecting the images of the world on photographers instead of using their original sign functions of indicating realities. Rather than life fragments or soul prospects, these photos are forming a new second reality and attracting me to seek trust and reality. In the meantime, I realized the implied danger of swallowing and destroying identity; if excessive self-debate is conducted in this way, photographers will be pushed away from the real and complete world. Therefore, in order to get long with photography forever, a relationship at an arm’s length shall be maintained, which will lead to the continuous disassembly and rebirth of self-awareness. I will keep bearing and reflecting on it.
Anyway, photography shall solve own problems. The explorations of photos shall be spontaneous instead of catering to game rules. On the road to the sacred mountain of self-soul, photography is a pioneer undoubtedly. Happiness, pain and other possibilities in progress will motivate me to make a pilgrimage to the heart as the source of attracting my power of photography. ——2021.9
关于自己的生命，我始终怀有一种莫名的紧迫感，而“寻找自我”在某种意义上，就是一种危机感的表现。
二零一七年接触摄影后不久，我并没有在专研技巧的道路上继续停留，反而在拍摄之外花了远为更多的时间去思考摄影这一事物的作用方式。我想这很大程度上来自于我对“存在主义”、“时间的厚度”这种体验的探索欲望，也正是在这些自己长期关注的问题之中，主体性与自觉意识暗自生长出来，理所当然地，摄影从一开始就不是一种谋生的手段，而是成为了探索自我和世界的关键契机。
写真只有不作为艺术，作为单纯的记录而存在时，才真正可以带来某些东西
-中平卓马
艺术摄影会导向观念，纪实摄影会强加道德，在艺术、纪实和记录之间，只有抛弃了“修辞”的记录是最为直接、最为完整的摄影。语言是调动逻辑展示出的思考结晶，是自我对世界的整理，而作为记录的摄影则是受本能驱动，其本质上是拍摄者在给定条件下实施的一次选择，是自觉意识进行观察之后价值判断的产物，因此，这些影像的意义，并不在于它被拍摄，而是在于它“为什么”被拍摄，选择按下快门的瞬间是关键的，彼时的环境现实和内心切实都会被一同混合成一种匀质平面的视觉表达，而摄影所要做的，就是抓住这种混沌的瞬间，在它分离之前将其记录下来，从而获得一种“真实”，这正是所说的“下雨了，就应该写下雨了”而不是别的。
所以，这一切无疑发生在一个暧昧的领域，其中溶解了此岸的“我”与彼岸的“世界”，也正是在这个暧昧的领域, 才诞生了所谓的“诗”。说起语言文字，这大概是人与动物最大的区别之一，然而语言文字始终会受制于现有的词汇，因此就算用最好的语言做最好的沟通，也仍然会有表达不了的部分，而这部分无法描摹、难以探查的自我意识断片却能够在拍摄中被“暧昧”的影像所捕捉，这些影像就如同自我灵魂的蝉蜕，用另一种视角来看的话，摄影照亮了一部分潜意识，使自我的轮廓柔和地浮现出来，同时，一种与内心对话的特殊语汇也由此被创造和使用，藉由这种“诗”的语言，我得以窥探自我、确立自我。
当选择了摄影作为自我书写的方式，那么我所能做的，就是将现实世界最大地予以个人化，然而，个体经验的放大始终不能取代其社会经验，与其说这些影像是在行使其原本指示现实的记号功能，不如说它是投影在拍摄者个人身上的世界之像，它已不再仅仅是生活的片段或是灵魂的图景，其自身已在形成一种新的第二现实，并不断吸引着我从中寻找信赖和真实，但同时我也逐渐意识到，这其中隐含着吞噬和破坏自身的危险，如果利用这种方式去做过度的自我辩护，则最终会被推离真实和完整的世界，因此，要想长久地与摄影相处下去，就不得不与之保持一种若即若离的克制关系，这种做法所导致的自我意识不断解体与再生，是我持续承担并思考的事。
无论如何，摄影，最终是要解决自己的问题，所有的影像探索都应当是自发的，而不是为了迎合某种游戏规则，在通往自我灵魂圣山的道路上，摄影无疑是一位先驱者，掘进途中不论快乐或是痛苦、及其包含的所有可能性在内，都将会是诱惑我的摄影力量之源泉，激励着我继续向着内心虔诚地朝圣。 ——2021年9月