SEPTEMBER PHOTOS

 Introduction by Michael Organ

Hiroshi Watanabe’s powerful photography shines brightly in an ever darkening sea of skies falling. True to the eye the lens shows and sees all, the still of silence beating loudly to images alive with life. The five displayed all have the theme of watching, looking elsewhere, above and beyond; an insight into the inside and out of a mind captured.

Before during and after, a Holy Week provokes thought. From the innocent to an up looking down, all see further than an instilled within, a contemplative adjustment in belief. Blindness betrays rationale, two generations as one looking each to a new direction. Young only as the day is old each learns and sees differently, the widening distance deafening between ages as one’s forward turns to another’s backwards. A wall blanks a view but beyond seeps through to a side each already has taken. The unspoken thought screams its own direction, Watanabe’s eye exploding through the depth a lens promised. Casual in curiosity a demeanour of indifference cloaks a worried innocence, each to their own seeking answers to unasked questions.

Torn between trust and believing, the innocence of faith is doubted.

Watanabe shows through a window the outside looking in, the day hiding behind as the inside looks on, living. An other side taunts a mind repeating, life breathing to an identical opposite of that imagined. Skies paint a troubled eye calming a storm of forgotten endings, the air through glass freeing one stuck inside the self. Secure in belief a sorrow weeps for a society dying, open only to closure the draught of light shivers within puncturing thinly the thick layers of mistrust.

Framed to distort, a stability looks out to a fragile existence.

A wall reflects the idea behind a mind seeking, every day ending in beginning. The eye sees one in another, an other’s disbelieving what it stares back on, a glimmer of the self lost in an unfamiliar face. All is still in a mind buzzing, the idea of life paralysing to a questioning heart; a struggle against living. We see eyes burning through the mirror breaking down a wall between, downside up, the image remaining its own frantic calm.

Painting faces on undrawn lines Watanabe demonstrates the true talent of an eye speaking.

By daylight a room darkens, the world timeless to an open mind. Preferring to hold one’s self the safety of another becomes distant in thought, light hiding the fight of life bleeding. Watanabe allows us into a room inhabited only by memories, looming shadows lighting a clock ticking louder by the seconds it cheats. Immune to another the loss of the self to within numbs, fate losing faith in fabled devotion, a story to calm and fear one’s own being. As its safety net weakens the will strengthens, tomorrow already looking back on a lost yesterday.

Faltering only as truth flourishes, science stands tall as the new religion.

On the outside of life looking in the inside looks out, feeling. All look to a direction outwards, true souls guided by the light shining within. An unbreakable will burns through that broken, the glow of purity heating hearts beating. Through one image a thousand years have been lived, Watanabe capturing perfectly the solid spirit of a genuine heart. Look into eyes that look into you, the soul bleeding from beaming, piercing the very truth of deception; a self known.

With experience comes age.

Exhibited worldwide and appearing in numerous publications and self published books, the Photographer’s work is also held in permanent public collections. Hiroshi Watanabe’s images continue to ring true, his eye through a lens sparkling, painting pictures rich in depth and feeling.