At southern coastline in Niigata City, Japan, from the series Namikake. © Arito Nashiki. 2015.
Statement
By southern coastline of Niigata City is located in northern part of the Sea of Japan. A village sank into the sea by a coastal erosion called “Namikake” in their region.
In the darkness of night on this coast, it takes a long time to adjust my vision. Once my eyes get used to it, images of a big rock, trees, a lighthouse, snow and the sea jump into my vision. The images have been there in the darkness, but they suddenly appeared to me.
The landscape seems that it hasn’t been there before and appeared in that moment I shoot. The coastal erosion that occurs in this region repeatedly changes their landscape each time.It is not the demise that one disappears by erosion, but it is the origin that the other is newly born.Every flash I make in the darkness, new form is born.
While I am at this place, I was feeling ambiguity between existence and creation, and reality and fantasy. It symbolizes that this coast is unstable forever by erosion. “Namikake” series are based on my these feelings in the coast of the snowy winter.
At southern coastline in Niigata City, Japan, from the series Namikake. © Arito Nashiki. 2015.
At southern coastline in Niigata City, Japan, from the series Namikake. © Arito Nashiki. 2015.
At southern coastline in Niigata City, Japan, from the series Namikake. © Arito Nashiki. 2015.
At southern coastline in Niigata City, Japan, from the series Namikake. © Arito Nashiki. 2015.
At southern coastline in Niigata City, Japan, from the series Namikake. © Arito Nashiki. 2015.
At southern coastline in Niigata City, Japan, from the series Namikake. © Arito Nashiki. 2015.
At southern coastline in Niigata City, Japan, from the series Namikake. © Arito Nashiki. 2015.
At southern coastline in Niigata City, Japan, from the series Namikake. © Arito Nashiki. 2015.
At southern coastline in Niigata City, Japan, from the series Namikake. © Arito Nashiki. 2015.
Bio
For me, what is captured is more important than what I shoot through the lens. The camera releases the photographer from viewing the subject as just an arbitrary and simple image.
In our daily life, the scenery has been subconsciously deposited and seems very “smooth”, or familiar to us. But, to me, it may seem too smooth and in the reality that exists. It is more “tension” between the subject and me. This is what I passionately try to capture in my photographs.
My works are often taken at night, because the darkness erases my opinions, which rise in the daytime, include in the photos automatically.
So, I try to capture the “tension” innately present between the subject and the photographer.
Arito Nishiki
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