_valerian

Finally got out to see some exhibitions along the Shinjuku-Yotsuya gallery walk yesterday. One show is nearly over but the second is just getting underway.

===Haruto Hoshi: Osaka at 3rd District Gallery

Haruto Hoshi’s grimy color flash work is a gallery of portraits shot at night on the streets of Osaka. A man with little difficulty mingling among what would probably best described as the underside parts of a city, his pictures never romanticize the streets, nor do they ever employ the typical sentimental “concerned photographer” pity that permeates Statements of Purpose and Photographic Projects/Missions by so many other contemporary photographers around the world.
Looking back over that sentence, I don’t think Hoshi is working out of concern for anyone, really. I suspect his concern lies with a desire to show images as straight and accurately as possible. This doesn’t mean that he is at all selfish, callous, or even naive. Quite the opposite. The guy knows what he is doing and through is own character, one that is comprised a kind of old-school respect coupled with a large degree of older-school toughness, is able to connect with people while out on the streets. He mentioned to me that he talks to nearly everyone he photographs and I see his respect for people coming through in his images. Everyone gets to keep their own individual pride.

Hoshi is almost always present in the gallery during his exhibitions and he serves a nice cup of hot tea to his visitors. Classy.

In a room full of interesting images I particularly was drawn to these two:

Osaka runs from January 13th to the 22nd.

Next, another photographer who gravitates towards people and places that lack glossy artifice, still with a flash but this time in Tokyo:

===Shinya Arimoto: Ariphoto 2012 Vol.1. at Totem Pole Gallery

A founding member and casual leader of Totem Pole Gallery, Arimoto has utilized the gallery walls over the years to exhibit his ongoing chronicle of the world and people of Tokyo that interest him most. The work shown in Vol.1 is a slight departure from the calmness that came from his previous photos taken with a Rolleiflex. Last year Arimoto purchased a Hasselblad 903SWC wide angle camera. (I am quite partial to the quote he ended his blog post about this camera switch with.)

Unlike the usual elegant lens-work Arimoto’s Rolleiflex has provided until now, his change in cameras has created a change in his images. Through the optical distortion from the wide angle lens on his new camera the images are visually energized in a way that slightly disorients the viewer. This graphic dynamism combined with the unnatural lighting of an electronic flash creates a world that feels (for lack of a better word) flashier than reality, but nonetheless never veers into cartoon territory.
The subject matter of every image in the show fits seamlessly into his ongoing photographic oeuvre and as always people are treated with respect no matter what their position is in life. Arimoto isn’t out to make ethically evaluative statements through his work. Like Hoshi’s photos, these are pictures made without pity or romance. Thankfully they are also utterly without contempt or that snarky streetflash “haha gotcha !” thing. The essence of the photographer’s own character shines through.

Unfortuantely I only snapped one picture of one picture from the show. And other than the trumpeting lines of the top of the vending machine it doesn’t really prove the “graphic dynamism” mentioned in the previous paragraph. But it’s a good one.

Thankfully, knowing Arimoto he’ll have all of the images up on his Flickr page once the show is over.

Ariphoto 2012 Vol.1 runs from January 17th to the 29th.