Dear Collectors,
While reading Haruki Murakami's early masterpiece, "Dance, Dance, Dance,'' I felt that one scene reminded me of Fishgerald's "The Great Gatsby.'' I felt that he was paying homage to the great writer he had admired since his youth. For me, it's the great Czech photographer Josef Sudek (1896-1976). When I was in elementary school, I saw his photographs in my father's Time Life magazine, and I was fascinated by the mysterious atmosphere of his photographs of parks, forests, and interiors in Prague. There is a strange humor and a mysterious world like a Kafka novel. He lost his right arm while serving in the army during World War I. But that didn't stop him from filming. He was able to skillfully handle everything from taking pictures to developing them using just his left arm. Sometimes, when I feel frustrated with my own clumsiness, I think of him. No, he probably went through much more trouble when filming. How blessed I am! When he lived, the country's system was socialist, so he was always treated poorly. However, the people of Prague admired him as the 'Poet of the Lens' after seeing him continue to take pictures despite his handicap. For me, his work is like a unique textbook that teaches me how to see things. There is no right answer, and there is a vast world of freedom and thoughtfulness. In other words, he visualized the world as he saw it while he was alive.
photograph Josef Sudek
I like to shoot using only natural light and avoid using artificial lighting equipment whenever possible. It's unstable, but sometimes unexpected dramas appear right in front of my eyes. It was a cloudy day when I took the photo attached below. I placed the brush, fruit, and bottle on the windowsill as usual. Then, suddenly, as if a curtain had been opened, sunlight streamed in. The view of the table by the window in the amazing light made me feel like it was undulating. It was as if the still life had been breathed into life for an instant. However, that light only lasted a few seconds. After that, there was only the same cloudy light as before. But in that moment, I was reminded of Sudek's work. What would he say to me when he saw this work?
