Ponte 25 de Abril

No presence of people where they are supposed to have their life.

Lisbon can be seen as it is without its people in the scene.

The air, light and shadow of Lisbon in another look.

I happened to pick up this photo book as it caught my eyes with its title “PONTE DE 25 ABRIL” or the Bridge of 25th April. Ponte De 25 Abril is one of the bridges on the river Tajo in Lisbon, Portugal. I have been to this bridge once, but I did not observe any peculiarity about it. It was just a red suspension bridge just like the Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco.

As you turn page after page, you will notice that you see no photos that depict the bridge itself. Furthermore, the most of photographs hardly include any passer-by in the scenes.

These rather strange photos were taken by Sayuri Naito, a photographer of younger generations. Looking over photos, I began to be drawn into her vision.

Looking at her work, I found straightforwardness and casualness in the style. Then, simultaneously, I observed a kind of enigmatic airiness in her work.

What makes this book peculiar is that she did not include local residents, though this exclusion might have been what she had intended. Once you land on the foreign soil, you would attempt to capture a scene with the presence of local life, as you might be in a state of mind which every tourist would have. In doing so, you could project the air of country or a town to your work. But Sayuri's work only present the air of Lisbon as it is without it.

And yet, this factor might have played a role in constituting its clearness and freshness.

Is Sayuri very strict to pursue her own style, or does she have shyness toward people? Does she always exclude people around her wherever she goes in her attempt to depict the place where she visits? Or else, does she try to portrait the 'air’ that would reflect the presence of people?

Her work surely fermented my curiosity.

I would rather suggest that Sayuri’ s work are not mere photographs of street scenes, but these are street scenes without the presence of people though local life is certainly in progress. It seems as if she simply and purely liked to take the light and shadow of Lisbon In photos like sunshine being projected onto tiles of the bathroom wall forming a shape of window, white sunray seen through the laced curtain, or the shadow of ivy creeping up on the white wall, you could grasp how naturally she reacts to the lights of Lisbon. When she takes a shot, the lens would point out nobody, and in her photos there is her image of Lisbon.

Sayruri's work do not show you any sign of poverty or squalid neighbourhoods. From her work in this book, it looks as though calm, elastic and gentle aspects, another look, of Lisbon emerge from her eyes. Photographer’ s identity may rest on how he or she frames an image. However, this photo book may suggest another style of photography in its making.

『COMMERCIAL PHOTO』MAY, 2009