shashasha

“My first camera was the camera that belonged to my father. At the time, looking through the same viewfinder as my father helped distract me from my grief.
That’s why I didn’t go search for anything important to take pictures of. I wandered around and aimed at spaces where I didn’t expect to capture anything in particular, or at moving objects, almost as if by instinct. However, due to the nature of the camera, unless something went wrong there would always be something captured in the images.”
― from Daisuke Tomizawa’s statement (translation by shashasha)

There is, as the publisher proudly proclaims, very little that happens in the approximately 300 photographs that constitute Daisuke Tomizawa’s photobook “Parallel Photography”. And yet, the realistic, objective character of the photographs, the third-person-view-like perspective on situations and events, unveils an irresistible charm. Tomizawa’s work seems to capture the world just as it is, without forced sentimentality. Throughout the book, we simply stand with Tomizawa as he photographs – his camera always parallel to the horizon – ordinary landscapes, street corners, cars, passersby and other moments, and with each image it feels as if he asks us, “Isn’t this nice?”