My previous post originally started out as an essay on the Japanese photographer, Mikiko Hara and her new publication, Small Myths. I was going to compare her work with that of Minor White and the other practitioners of the Equivalent tradition. Although maybe not intentionally, Hara photographs the mystery of the mundane. Her photographs depict not what “is” but what else there is. Her images are full of mystery and otherness that lead to contemplation in many cases.
In an Aperture interview in 2007 Mikiko Hara states: “I’ve never tried to establish my own approach to photography or to send any message with my photographs. All I did was just be there, to try to be honest about my feelings of pleasure, surprise, awe and anger. The camera does everything else.” This is almost the exact opposite practice of the equivalent tradition. They did manipulate the image in order to send a message, to create a record that was equivalent to whatever they were feeling. But what they did have in common is their attempt to be honest and open with their feelings and emotions at the time of making the image. I think this leads to very similar images. Although I think Mikiko Hara would eschew the mystical trappings of Minor White, the honesty with which she approaches image making and her trust that the – “the camera eye is purer more fair, more solid and tougher than my eyes,” leads to images that record not just what was in front of the camera lens but “what else was there”.
I have been and admirer of Mikiko Hara’s work ever since I got my hands on a copy of Hysteric Thirteen. It wasn’t printed very well (I later came to realize) and one of my favorite images in the book was of a yawning cat in what apparently was an empty lot. In the upper right were some utility wires and on the bottom left what seemed to be some round black object reminiscent of the head of a giant black hammer. There was a spot on the cat’s lip on the right side.
At first I though it was something on the page but brushing my hand over the page did nothing. The spot added to the mystery of the image and it remained so. Some time later in 2007 I was excited to see that there was a show of Mikiko Hara’s work at the Cohen Amador gallery in New York. Unbeknownst to me it was her first show outside of Japan. As usual for me at that time, I visited the gallery during my lunch hour(s), and got into a conversation with Stephen Amador who told me about his experience with the spotted cat in Hysteric Thirteen. He also thought the spot was a part of the image and was absolutely flabbergasted upon seeing an original print where the spot was gone. The spot was a printing mistake by Hysteric and they just didn’t bother to fix it! I also noticed after seeing other versions of this image that the one in Hysteric Thirteen was also very yellow.
Incidentally in Winter 2007 Aperture puts this on their cover:
Force Of Seeing 