"Untitled" "Untitled - Transform"

Although people exist before our eyes, what image do we exactly have of them ?
Isn't it pointless to try to pursue a definite image of people in the first place? In our everyday lives, we pass
so many different people all the time, with various thoughts running through our minds daily.

This series experiments with taking portraits of people in such complicated circumstances. Using female
office workers from the largest companies in Japan as models, I photographed these women in their working environment. Furthermore, I took another photo of the subject through arrangements of transparent acrylic
cubes. The hard texture results in intricate, overlaying effects that make up these portraits of urban workers
and add a symbolic level to their photos.
By looking at these women through this texture, we can see distortions and reflections that change their
original expression thereby revealing further individual multi-faceted dimensions. The plies of small acrylic
pieces represent various elements of their character, and the images of figures blended with their environment reflects how these women negotiate their workplace.
I have given a three-dimensional effect to a two-dimensional image, resulting in a complex, Cubist-like image
that captures the subject from multiple angles.

With Transform, I have explored how to take portraits of individual people through not just one image.
I also change the acrylic pieces according to the day time and take further images of the one portrait.
Furthermore, since all the images were taken with natural lighting, changes in weather and time were also
reflected. What was once one single portrait suddenly takes on transformations by adding slight changes in
the photograhy. Through this changing appearance, we come to see the subject's expression changing with
time, and thereby our impressin of them.