Statement by Yoshihiro Ikka

A photograph is a "document"

To "document" is, in other words, to "stop the flow of time".
Usually, we cannot intervene in this process.

But I dare approach photography as a "fixed document" from the present moment.
It may be because of my Japanese background that I do so.
We the Japanese long for continuity and succession:
the Buddhist concept of "metempsychosis".
Earthquakes, typhoons and wars had been threatening the stability of our material world. Man, who lives on air and swims in emptiness, is fated to fade away like a bubble. For his ephemerality, I love him. That is why I try to reach for it.

The shining "blank space" in my photographs.
We cannot recognize what exists there.
But, you will find "something" there as long as you are living.
And, I believe, that "something" should depend on the beholder.

Take the blank space on faces on a photograph.
For their presence, we are free to imagine how those faces would have looked like. At this very moment, that shining blank space on the photo will be freed from the limited role of documentation.
I, as a present being, will be able to slide into the image which captures a past moment.

It would be impossible to change what happened in the past.
But I would leave the image of the past to somebody now and here.

This encourages me to keep on taking photographs


Takeshi Sumi is a photographer based in Osaka, Japan & Paris France.
To view more of Takeshi Sumi's work, please visit his website.
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