50年前，應該不是太久以前的事情吧。可是，如果找過去的照片來看，又會發覺一切都確實不一樣了，就像另一個世界一樣。
2019年開始，一個署名工藤正巿的Instagram帳號持續分享著1950年代的青森照片。他的作品就像一顆安靜的石頭，在網絡引起了強烈的迴響。一個來自智利聖地牙哥的男人在他的照片下留言，說他拍下的景象，與他現時身處的村落簡直一模一樣。
當然，位於日本本州最北端的青森，是不會與南美洲的村落一模一樣的。令來自智利的男子覺得熟悉的，也許是一種獨特的氛圍。如果要以文字明確說明，那是一種令人聯想到現代化來到世界邊緣，緩慢地改變著當地生活面貌的感覺。在現代化的中心，例如東京，一切都急促變化著。在工藤正巿的青森中，卻看見遙遠、慵懶、平常和生活。
工藤正巿分享的照片，全都攝於1950至1962年之間的青森。當時的日本剛進入戰後狀態，與美國結盟後，憑著製造消費品而經濟迅速發展。那時的東京，為著新的景象而感到莫名的躁動和亢奮。
工藤拍下的青森，卻是一個安靜的世界。在積了厚雪的寬闊大街上，衣著樸素的人們揹著行李步行、學生和上班族騎著單車通勤，四輪馬車運載著貨物艱難地前行。偶爾，也能夠看見鐵路路軌和汽車，但那只是黝黑的背景，仍未進入日常生活中。移動的方式會塑造人感受空間的方法，也會影響人與環境之間的比例感。對當時的青森居民來說，他們仍然生活在一個既定的同心圓的範圍中。
工藤熱衷於拍攝路邊風景，因為他也是風景中的其中一人。書收錄的366照片中，大半都攝於他步行上班的動線之間。他於1946年開始於日報《東奧日本》任職。開始時負責印刷，後來轉任攝影。在攝影術仍未普及的當時，他就能帶著相機四處拍照，是出於職業的原因。
其實，工藤正巿早於2014年去世，也從未開辦Instagram帳號。這兩年來引起世界各地攝影界注意的他，生前就連家人也不知道他人生中有一段時間，曾經熱愛著拍攝青森的日常生活。在他去世後，熱衷地分享著照片的人，其實是他女兒。
工藤正巿去世後，女兒工藤加奈子前往青森的父親居所執拾時，發現一部份黑白負片。2018年，加奈子為母親執拾行李，準備前往養護場所時，發現了幾張彩色正片，拍的是母親和1歲時的哥哥。母親感動的表情令加奈子感到好奇，到底父親曾經拍過怎樣的照片。後來，她在舊居的櫃子裡發現了更多的負片。
2019年，工藤加奈子的母親逝世。由於新冠肺炎的疫情，她有更多空閒的時間。在丈夫的幫助下，她將數量龐大的負片沖洗，並掃描至電子檔。
加奈子看見照片時，感到非常震撼。對她來說，父親唯一的嗜好是釣魚。直至他去世前，工藤正巿差不多每日也會獨自去釣魚。至於攝影，他從來也沒有提及。
照片在 Instagram 上發表後，引起全球廣大迴響，更常被用來與美國保姆攝影師Vivian Maier的故事相提並論。
日本編輯都築響一形容工藤正巿的照片「既不受制於當地人『以這種方式展示青森』的願望」，也不屈服於東京「『青森應該是什麼樣子』先入為主的觀念」。他形容工藤的照片「超越時代，超越地點，向我們展示了一個安靜而堅定的『人』的存在。」簡潔來說，他的意思是工藤拍照時沒有受任何議題、意識形態或美學風格影響。安份生活，偶然拍照。
然而，在樸實的照片中，有這樣的幾個瞬間——幾張照片，拍下了如夢一樣的質感，現實和象徵的世界完美地重疊。一個攝影師是很難主動尋求這種瞬間的，你只能等待，而且是拿著相機等待。
走在街道上，有時候會被一種突如其來的怪異感襲擊，覺得眼前的一切好像只不過是以往的事物改頭換臉，重新再進行一次。未來，還要穿起其他的表皮，一再發生。因此，我們會同時感覺到熟悉和陌生感。
這種時刻，我都強烈地感覺到拍照的需要。不是為了留下什麼，也不為了表達情緒，只是一種害怕，害怕眼前的事物，都會一一離自己而去。
50 years is not such a long time ago, but if you look at an old photograph, you may realise that everything is indeed not the same, that it looks like an entirely different world.
Since 2019, an Instagram account by the name of Shoichi Kudo has been sharing photos of Aomori in the 1950s. His works, like a quiet stone, caused strong waves on the internet. A man from Santiago, Chile, commented under his photos that the scenery he captured looked almost the same as the village where the man was in at the time.
Certainly, Aomori, situated at the northern end of Honshu, Japan, will never look exactly the same as the villages in South America. What felt familiar for the man from Chile was perhaps a distinct atmosphere. If we are to put it in words clearly, it is a feeling that brings to mind the thought of modernisation reaching the edge of the world, changing the local way of life very slowly. At the centre of modernisation, for instance, in Tokyo, everything is changing rapidly. In Shoichi Kudo’s Aomori, however, one sees remoteness, languor, ordinariness and daily living.
The photos shared by Shoichi Kudo were all taken in Aomori between 1950 and 1962. At the time, Japan had just entered its post-war state. After Japan had struck an alliance with the United States, its economy was rapidly developing by producing consumer goods. During that time, Tokyo was caught up in an inexplicable agitation and buzz about the new sight.
Aomori, as captured by Kudo, however, was a quiet world. On wide streets steeped in thick snow, people in plain clothes carried their luggage on their back as they walked along, students and workers travelled around on bicycles, and four-wheel horse-drawn carts loaded with goods moved on with difficulty. Occasionally, one sees railway tracks and cars too, but they were still murky backgrounds, yet to enter into daily life. The way people move shapes the way they experience space, and also affects the sense of proportion people feel towards their environment. To residents of Aomori back then, they were still living within the fixed spaces of concentric circles.
Kudo was keen on taking photographs of roadside scenery because he was also a figure within the scenery. Of the 366 photos included in the book, more than half were taken along the route that he took to walk to work. In 1946, he started working for the newspaper, Tō-Ō Nippō. He was in charge of printing at the start, but switched to photography later. At a time when photography was still uncommon, he was already carrying a camera everywhere to take photos, all due to his profession.
The fact is, Shoichi Kudo passed away in 2014 and had never opened an Instagram account. While the last two years saw him catching the attention of photography scenes around the world, before his death, not even his relatives knew that there was a time in his life when he was so passionate about taking photographs of people’s daily life in Aomori. The person who has been avidly sharing his photos on Instagram after his death was actually his daughter.
After Shoichi Kudo had passed away, while his daughter Kanako Kudo was tidying her father’s residence in Aomori, she discovered some of his black-and-white negatives. In 2018, when Kanako was packing her mother’s luggage to prepare for her move into a residential facility, Kanako found a few colour negatives that showed her mother and her elder brother when he was one. Her mother’s touched expression at seeing the photographs stirred Kanako’s curiosity about what kinds of photographs her father had once taken. Later, in the closet of his father’s late residence, she uncovered more negatives.
In 2019, Kanako Kudo’s mother passed away. Because of the COVID pandemic, Kanako had more spare time. With the help of her husband, she developed a large number of negatives and scanned them into digital files.
Kanako was stunned when she saw the photos. To her, her father’s only interest was fishing. Up until his death, Shoichi Kudo would go fishing alone almost every day. As for photography, he never mentioned a word.
After the photos were posted on Instagram, they drew widespread responses worldwide, and were often talked about in juxtaposition to the story of American nanny-cum-photographer Vivian Maier.
Japanese editor Kyoichi Tsuzuki described Shoichi Kudo’s photos as “unconfined by the locals’ wishes to ‘present Aomori in a certain way’”, yet also unyielding to Tokyo’s “presumptuous idea of ‘what Aomori should look like’”. He described Kudo’s photos as “beyond eras, beyond locations, showing us the kind of quiet but firm existence of ‘man’.” In short, his idea was that Kudo was not influenced by any subject matter, ideology or aesthetic style when he took photographs. He lived contentedly and took photographs occasionally.
And yet, in those plain photos, there are several moments – where a few of them captured a surreal texture. Reality and the world of symbols coalesced perfectly. A photographer can rarely pursue these moments actively. One can only wait, that is, camera in hand.
Walking on the streets, sometimes one is assailed by a sudden feeling of eeriness, as if everything before our eyes are but things from the past in a different skin, happening all over again. In the future, they will continue to put on other skins and reoccur repeatedly. As such, we feel a sense of familiarity and uncanniness at the same time.
In moments like these, I strongly feel the need to take photographs, not to retain anything, nor to express emotions, but simply in fear, the fear that things before our eyes will leave us one after another.
