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The scenery hidden in the fog

Shōji Ueda’s color photography

植田正治的世界是黑白色的。

雪白的沙丘化成的舞台、飄在風裡的帽子、推著腳踏車的小孩,穿著和風表情幽幽的女生……拍攝於鳥取弓浜的黑白照,展現著似夢如幻的超現實世界。在攝影生涯的後期,植田正治開始拍攝彩色的照片,雖然在處理彩色攝影時,他並沒有刻意安排拍攝對像的位置與道具,而多是紀錄性質的,然而照片裡卻仍流露著滿滿的非現實性。

植田正治在少年時期,便喜歡使用Kodak於1925年已停產的Vest Pocket Kodak的鏡頭,而他後來拍攝的彩色照,不少都是使用這個鏡頭拍攝下來的。該鏡頭有一個特性,就是當光圈給調大時,拍攝下來的影像便會含糊起來,如同沒入散發著光線的雲霧之中。植田正治將這鏡頭套用在當時單鏡反光照相機之上,拍攝了一系了農村及漁村風光的照片。最平凡不過的陌生人與風景,於照片之中竟有種令人懷緬的感覺。

後來植田正治將這系列作品編修成攝影集《植田正治 ベス単写真帖 白い風 》(中譯:植田正治 Vest寫真帖 白色的風)。近來日本一家名為Kiyoyuki Kuwabara Accounting Gallery的畫廊開幕,便以此系列作品作開幕展。展期至3月3 日。


The world of Shōji Ueda is usually in black and white.

A stage formed by a pure white sand dune, a hat floating in the wind, a child pushing a bike, a girl in kimono who has a sullen look… These images photographed in Tottori depict a mystically surreal world. In the later stage in his career, Shōji Ueda began to focus more on color photography, where Mise-en-scène is less heavily used and he also stopped staging the scene with props. The objects under his lens were primarily used as a means of documentation, but still, his works never cease to exude a surreal vibe.

During his youth, Ueda enjoyed using the lens of the Vest Pocket Kodak camera that Kodak

already stopped manufacturing back in 1925. Many of his color photography was also made with this camera. When the Vest Pocket Kodak lens is adjusted to a larger aperture, images would become blurry, as if being hidden in a hazy beam of light. Ueda attached the lens to his single-lens reflex camera and made a series of photography in farms and fishing villages. These ordinary encounters with strangers and scenery were somehow transformed into a mood of reminiscence in his photography.

Shōji Ueda later published these works in Ueda Shoji’s Vest Pocket Kodak Photo Album: Brilliant Scenes. Recently, the newly opened Kiyoyuki Kuwabara Accounting Gallery in Japan is showing Ueda’s photography from this series in their opening exhibition. The exhibition will end on the 3rd of March.

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