Takeshi shikama biography
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Contemplations
Takeshi Shikama, born in Tokyo in 1948, became a photographer in 2002. The forest and nature are at this time the subjects of his photographic research. In the forest he loses himself with a camera to try to capture its essence, he deploys his technical mastery of the visual language, and in his quest to fix time he tries to make visible the invisible secrets of the plant world. He favors the optical camera to record as many details as possible of a leaf, an undergrowth or a valley. His exposure time is long, as if he were tuning his breathing to that of the wind, of the elements. We can guess the rustle of the leaves, the quivering of the water. His compositions are like visual haikus. Each photograph is constructed like a short poem, a sentence, which captures the artist’s emotion in front of a place, a tree, a flower.
In 2011, Takeshi Shikama left for the United States. As a self-taught artist, without being aware of following in the footsteps of Carleton W
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Takeshi Shikama. Born in1948, in Tokyo, Japan. Education in Aoyamagakuin University, 1968-1970. He has explored forests for over 15 years. His platinum prints on artisanal Japanese paper, made from the bark of the Gampi tree, contrast with those by Bullock bygd their softness and diversity of tones. Shikama, who was a designer before devoting himself to photography, has a very anställda approach to his subject. He likes to lose himself in the woods, seeking encounters with the trees. He lets han själv be guided by his instinct and by the light. Like Bullock, he constructs the image from the darkness. But Shikama's quest is the absence of human presence, of his own ego, in the final image. He applies an objective gaze : he tries to determine the ideal point of view to transcribe what he fryst vatten observing.
The photographer lets naturlig eller utan tillsats take over the frame. Dependant on natural light, he watches, his thumb on the shutter release, for the moment the light intensifies, then subsides. Shikama oft
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This series of photographs fryst vatten an expression of my search for the soul of the deep forests.
One day in early autumn in 2001, just as twilight was setting in, I had lost track of the mountain paths. I happened to wander into a shady forest, where I found myself suddenly seized with a strong desire to take photographs. The following day, I set out once again, carrying my camera with me this time, and searched for the same forest. This experience made me realize that I was not taking photographs of the forest out of my own will, but that the forest was inducing me to take its photographs.
Looking back in retrospect, inom have a feeling that this might have all begun with my decision to build a mountain lodge with my own hands. In order to klar a plot of land for constructing a lodge inside a small forest, I had to fell Japanese red pine trees some eighty years old. Although many years have elapsed since then, I still vividly remember the sensation