Untitled (Surround) is a series that photographs the suburban landscapes of Yokohama surrounding my family home. What appears in these images is not a special place or a particular event, but the everyday environment of the Japanese suburbs. Houses, roads, and the gaps between buildings are recorded as familiar elements within the frame.
The series was begun in 2011. It is also the first body of work I produced using a digital camera. The photographs are taken with a telephoto lens and finished with a deliberately shifted white balance. As a result, the colors are unstable and carry a sense of imprecision. Familiar suburban scenes appear at a slight remove, as if resisting clear description or immediate understanding.
All of the photographs are composed in a vertical format. This choice is not determined by the subject matter itself, but rather emphasizes each image as an independent photographic object, presented less as a representation of landscape than as a discrete image.
If my earlier works were directed toward the interior of the home and its immediate surroundings, Untitled (Surround)marks a natural expansion of that gaze outward. The landscapes shown here do not attempt to communicate meaning or function as symbols. They remain simply as they are, recorded in a state that cannot be fully grasped, observed quietly without emphasis or resolution.
