I’ve been there. In recent years, my camera and I have been searching out small villages in Nepal and Southeast Asia. After living for more than 15 years in Tokyo, with its modern architecture, advanced transportation system, and abundant high technology, I have found myself in villages where none of the homes have running water, and only some have electricity. Transportation means people on foot and goods carried by mule trains. This was an unexpected world for me. I had not imagined that such places still existed in the 21st century.
Maybe I can show you. What draws me and my camera back again and again are the villagers and their culture. They hold to traditional customs and simpler ways of living. Their pace of life seems slower. Through these experiences, I have come to realize that those of us who live in developed countries have lost something in our push for ever greater levels of progress. What we have lost still exists in these small villages. This is the focus of this exhibit.
Something else drives me to pursue this photographic series, something that is beyond my capacity to describe. My camera and my little inner voice know what that something is. I just need to trust my camera and heed my inner voice.
It’s about the light. The mood, the atmosphere of the images in this series differs from my other work. The tone is much richer. Partly, this reflects the life in these villages, where the life is very simple and the pace is slower and the people are modest and humble. The other part of this, though, is the quality of the light in the mountains. I cannot explain this scientifically, but aesthetically the difference is clear. Ironically, I failed to see this difference until I was printing in the darkroom. The feeling came over me quietly, unconsciously.
The goal of this exhibition is to explore the daily life of people who live in these villages, as conveyed by the special light in the mountains.
Visit the gallery “Mountain Villages“