Nightingale Valley

2010 ~ 2013
Collection of 66

“ほんね【本音】(honne)
         one’s true feelings; what one is really thinking; what is on one’s mind; one’s real [true] intention; one’s true [real, underlying] motive.

たてまえ【建て前・立て前】(tatemae)
         a facade; the theory; 《for》 appearances’ sake; what one professes [says in public]; the official position; a public stance.”

     – KENKYUSHA’S NEW JAPANESE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY, 5TH EDITION, 2003

In a society where harmonious community takes precedence over rampant individuality every manifestation of one’s personality contradicting a commonly accepted set of behaviors and established practices is destined to diminish quietly. However, even in this strictly conformist environment, most anomalies have a right to coexist, being blissfully ignored instead of denounced, as long as their public occurrences obey a strict principle appropriately aligning them with time and space – a spatiotemporal behavioral matrix so to speak, that defines a fuzzy set of tolerable behaviors for a particular location and time. Over the past three years I have visited the Nightingale Valley several times in order to observe and capture a normally invisible glitch in society, hidden somewhere underneath the daylight of part time jobs, business etiquette, coldness of white office spaces. Ranging from construction workers and hostesses, through convenience store clerks, office ladies, to company employees and the public sector workers, everyone floats through metro tunnels like cells in a bloodstream, delivering oxygen that fuels the metropolis. Some obscured by latest consumer electronics or white hygiene masks, others with faces absently visible, all next to each other staring out the window of a passenger car long after the train dives deep into Tokyo’s underground… contemplating the black? Getting accustomed to it? Familiarizing themselves with their own socially adapted portraiture reflected on a black, glossy canvas? The sun surely sets early here and days of carefreeness are merely a cherry blossom long. What for most is a subtly crafted, indisputable state of peace and balance, for some is an overwhelming, invisible force obliging them to suppress their identity for a greater good. Therefore, perfectly disguised during rush hours, they seem to reflect light in a manner indistinguishable from the other commuters; only in the valley do they let the spectrum individualize and reveal unique characteristics of their conscientiously camouflaged desires. Or maybe it’s not for them to decide? Maybe it’s the valley that refracts light at a different angle, pointing it into a deviated direction, thus illuminating the normally unseen? If that’s the case, then does the valley unfold a hidden manifestation of myself as well? Moreover, does it interfere with how I photograph my subjects and align my perception with their common denominator? The ability to point the camera with impunity in any direction, to see the upskirt of human desire, makes it hard to resist, while capturing those acts of revelation and trying to comprehend the outcome is equally fascinating. What I see is not a variety of costumes; quite the contrary, I see a variety of nudes, the nature undressed, stripped of any confining social norms or expectations. Although fully exposed, it’s safe in the valley, invulnerable to the judgmental eye of the street, paved with pleasure and willingly waiting for an embrace, with its legs wide opened and fingers crossed.