Kozue DEGUCHI

"RYOKURA"

Pages: 104 / photos: 50
Size: 235x313x18mm / hardcover
Price: 3,675JPY
Release Date: July 2011

I capture “sounds” echoing inside me.
Perhaps, I can only hear the sounds. They are the sounds of silence.
In every given moment in my daily life, I “see” them.

I do not go far away or even on trips just to capture them.
I just walk alongside national highways. I walk around rice field.
Somewhere forgotten, but nature in immediate vicinity of me.
That is where I “see” and capture them.
I capture the sounds of silence vertically.
Literally, I face subjects through lens vertically.
I do that because I want to see and take them as they are,
not what they “seem to be”.

Early in the morning, or before sundown,
I bring my camera and go out.
The pale light of the Sun “breathes” softly on “RYOKURA”.
“RYOKURA” “wakes up” and stands out sharp, and starts talking to me.

“RYOKURA” just means dense and leafy greens.
I capture their existence itself, not seasonal or other meanings behind them.
Their existence itself means to me.
Sometimes they are so tense, close to burst in the air.
Some other times, they are so strong and dignified,
Under the same theme, each piece completes meaning itself.
Each piece has their own “musical” note.
With them all in lined up, an orchestrated wave of sounds is born.
It is a groovy kind.
In the subtle, but yet strong wave,
you will find and see what I capture inside me.

(From the author's postscript)