Well another summer has entered that illusory Hall Of Memories somewhere in my brain. I had a wonderful summer visiting friends in California and hiking The Channel Islands. But now the students are back on campus and a hint of Autumn can be felt. To my delight the Fall photo season is also upon us.

As most of my readers know I love everything photography from Japan and so naturally first on my photo season schedule of shows to see is at Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery in New York highlighting the work of Mikiko Hara. Hara just won the prestigious Ihei Kimura Photograpy Award in Japan and seems to be finally getting the recognition she is due. I have known of her work for quite sometime and have always been very impressed. Her first published work was in the form of Hysteric (#13) and that was it for a long time. In the U.S. Amador Gallery (sadly now defunct) had an exhibition of her work in 2007 called Blind Letter. I attended the show and spoke at length with Mr. Amador about the work and about Japanese photography in general. He was also showing works from Kanemura Osamu’s Spider’s Strategy.

Recently a few more publications of her work have been created; Change which is a collaboration with Stephen Dixon and These Are Days. The exhibition is based on the publication Change and spans over a decade of her work. The website says there is a catalog  to accompany the show so one more publication to add to my collection. The opening and a reception will be held September 14, 2017.

Mikko Hara’s photographs are tense moments of in between. They are mysterious and get their power from the body language of her subjects as well as the ambiguity inherent in the images. It is as if the quotidian was underlain with a hint of the ominous. From her statement in These Are Days:

The camera accepts what is un-understandable, rather than visualising the thought of the photographer. I feel that the camera is excellent as such a machine which is capable of scooping up things from the realm of the unconscious

The above image is my favorite. An ordinary teenage girl sits waiting. A pretty ordinary site but have the teenager turn her head and approach her from behind and suddenly she is a one eyed menace; a supernatural figure all in black. Is that cat yawning or is it in pain or is it roaring like a lion at the photographer? It is all of these and none of these. The girl below exists in a liminal space. She is at the threshold of a life altering trip. Or is it the end of a long and weary journey pausing temporarily to contemplate her next move? There are directions behind her but she des not see them? What is she wearing on her face, an invisible mask or just a wisp of elastic that is all that is holding her together?

It looks like the 2017 photo season is off to a great start.