Assembly Snow1

Assembly Snow by Osamu Yokonami

They all melt into the sceneries.

日本攝影師橫浪修曾進行過一個攝影系列〈1000 Children〉,他讓一千位小女孩穿上相同的制服,著她們用頭與肩固定一顆水果,各自拍了一張獨照。他認為作相同的打扮,做同樣的動作,之間的微小差異更能顯現每個人的個性。

後來的〈Assembly〉系列使用同樣的公式,卻有了截然相反的效果。一群年輕女孩身穿制服,在自然景色中做著相同的事,踏著韻律一致的步伐,卻照看不清臉龐,放眼看就只是一群路過的中學生。他特意模糊被攝者的面貌,因為人臉的消失,身份與個性便隨之流逝。

最近,橫浪修自費出版了攝影集《Assembly Snow》,從純白色、只有壓印了書名與攝影師名字的封面,到內頁的大量留白,讓人更能察覺影像當中的茫茫雪景,它們有淡淡的藍,成了別樣的白。因延長快門而重疊的身影,上一個動作殘留下來的餘影,疊著下一個正要展開的動作,她們或舞動或翻滾、或奔跑與旋轉,最終也會和成一團色彩,在風景之中,在橫浪修的鏡頭下,身體也成了風景。

 

Japanese photographer Osamu Yokonami once produced a photography series titled 1000 Children, in which he had a thousand little girls wear the same uniform, and asked them to balance a piece of fruit on their heads and shoulders; he then took an individual photograph of each of them. In his opinion, the tiny differences among people with the same outlook and the same pose can further bring out each of their personality.

His later series, which is titled Assembly, followed the same recipe, but the outcome was a direct opposite. A group of young girls in uniform perform the same things against the background of natural sceneries, their steps in unison yet their faces are obscured; at first glance, they look like a group of secondary school students passing by, nothing more. He intentionally blurred the facial features of those photographed because when the faces disappear, so do the identity and personality.

Recently, Osamu Yokonami self-financed the publication of a photo album titled Assembly Snow. Thanks to the purely white cover, which bears only the embossed book title and the name of the photographer, as well as to plenty of blank space in the inner pages, it is easier to notice the vast snow landscape in the pictures, whose light blue becomes a distinct kind of white. The use of a slow shutter speed creates overlapping bodies, with the residue shadow of the previous motion overlaying with the beginning next motion; they are dancing, rolling around, running or rotating, eventually melting into a ball of colors; within the sceneries, before the lenses of Osamu Yokonami, even bodies become sceneries.

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