Photographing, Selecting, and Showing

Introduction

My name is Sugimura Tomomi ( Artist page ), and I am a photographer. In this article, I would like to share with you the background of my work and add a little more "fun" to looking at photographs.

The kind of photography I'm working on, if you have a camera, you can take pictures of any scenery, people, or things. With a smartphone, it's even easier to take pictures, process them, and send them out to the world via Instagram, which is a very fun medium.

I'd like to show you how my work flows through my mind when I try to convey my thoughts and feelings to someone else, and how it comes out to the world.

In addition to the so-called common prints (printing or outputting photos on paper), my works are also developed into three-dimensional works. Photographs printed on transparent film are pasted onto acrylic blocks, which are then pasted together to form a single object.

The final form is different, but the process of creating the work is the same.
I will divide the process into three parts: taking, selecting, and showing the photographs.

The process of taking, selecting, and showing

A. Taking pictures

The first thing to do is to take pictures. I look at what is in front of me with my own eyes and capture the moment in the frame of the camera's viewfinder. At this point, all I have in mind is "to look at things properly without thinking about them. The ideal situation would be to forget that I even have it in my mind. I collect paintings by thinking about what is the most beautiful at that moment.

I judge the elements to be included in the picture, such as color, shape, light, and movement, for that moment. I think the best way to learn how to see the light and to release the shutter just as I want is to touch the camera and take a number of pictures.

B. Choosing

Sometimes I look back at the pictures I took on the same day, and sometimes I look at them a few days later. I quickly look through hundreds of pictures and check the ones that I think are good. There are colors, shapes, and many other elements, and my only criterion is whether or not I think it is interesting.

However, what I mean by "interesting" here is not whether it was interesting when I took it, but whether it is interesting when I look at it now. Is it interesting?

At the end of the day, it is not me who looks at the photos, but the people who see the works at the exhibition site or on the website. Therefore, it is not my taste or sense of accomplishment that I rely on when selecting photos. I just judge whether the square picture looks interesting now. (There are different views on what is interesting, so ask different photographers.

C. Show

Think about what theme you want to show. Think about what you want to show, where you want to show it, and what is the best form and number. (What you want to convey is not always the first thing. Sometimes the exhibition venue is decided first. This is also true for the works that I submit to ARTiATE.

I imagine that the work will be displayed in someone's private space, and I think about what kind of content I want, how big I want it to be, and so on. I arrange them in my mind, change the size, and imagine the drawing.

Repeat until you think it's right.

In the process of ABCs up to this point, if you think in order, you may be able to finish your work by going from A to B to C. However, I think there have been very few times when I have been able to finish my work in one turn.

The ABCs are not an order, but each is a part to be created. If any part is missing, it cannot be made. I keep repeating the ABCs until the end result is what I had imagined or better, but how much weight I put on each part and how many times I do it is up to me at the time.

Last year, for the "Distance and Sensation" exhibition, I made small prints of the selected works and lined them up in my room, and then I took pictures, replaced them, and looked at them for a while.
(A→B→C→A→B→A→B...)

I couldn't get an image of the material and size until I was satisfied with the picture, and I was wondering how many pieces I should put together. I was struggling until the very last minute to decide how many pieces to put together. I had a general idea of the direction I wanted to take, but it was difficult to put my own thoughts on it, so I rearranged the photos and wrote notes as I went along.

Conveying the work and thoughts to someone else

When the work is ready to be shown to the world, my thoughts are finally conveyed to someone.
When you receive feedback from people who have seen your work, or when your work is in the hands of someone else, it creates a connection between your inside and outside.

However, once the work is out in the open, it has left my hands and is walking on its own, and I cannot change its shape or meaning. Even if the work itself remains in my hands, it is an independent thought.
The works do not have a great mission or any real benefit that can help someone, but each of them has a role to play in conveying what I feel when I look at the world through my filter.

From now on, when you look at not only photographs but also other kinds of works, please enjoy them while imagining what the artist was thinking or what kind of process he went through to create them.

Tomomi Sugimura Born in 1988.I create snapshots and 3D photographic works.I capture attractive moments and images with camera.I believe that it is very important to feel fragility and inevitable things while we are living.I'd like to capture many moments in daily life.