Impulse

I’ve been fol­low­ing Masahiro Makino’s work on Flickr. I like the quiet sim­plic­ity of his pho­tos. To me, they def­i­nitely have an Asian aes­thetic, though I haven’t been able to put my fin­ger on exactly what makes them so. Perhaps it’s his econ­omy of com­po­si­tion — the sub­ject is clearly stated with­out excesses of pre­tense, dis­trac­tion, or graphic meth­ods that delib­er­ately draw atten­tion. The note is played clearly, modestly.

There’s a note of calm in these images. I often talk about pho­tograph­ing verbs so that pho­tos feel alive, active. Makino, in con­trast, pho­tographs moments of still­ness — as if the clamor of the world wound down to a stop just long enough for the click of Makino’s shut­ter. This is quite tricky to do — there’s a fine line between pho­to­graphic seren­ity, and bore­dom. Makino reli­ably hits the for­mer.
Makino com­poses with strong graphic design: A rounded tri­an­gle of school­girls capped by a cir­cle of a para­sol. A hor­i­zon­tal line of men in white coats. A grace­ful curve of light slip­ping between sil­hou­ettes. These ele­ments cre­ate shapes that draw my atten­tion, but don’t dom­i­nate. Surf Flickr for a while and you’ll see some strik­ingly designed pho­tographs, but the design ends up being the sub­ject. Makino is able to bal­ance the design to serve the sub­ject.
All that high-fallutin’ talk aside, I like Makino’s pic­tures of cats. If the pic­tures are to believed, Kyoto is crawl­ing with cats. I’m no fan of cats, but there’s some­thing amus­ing about these ani­mals treat­ing the city like a huge liv­ing room. The street pho­tog­ra­phy forums are filled with pic­tures of home­less peo­ple and street kids, so it’s refresh­ing to find some­one tak­ing pic­tures of the other street crea­tures. I like the idea that some­where over there, Makino is qui­etly snap­ping pic­tures of these crit­ters loung­ing around the city.

Related posts:

1. CoolArt: Ron Hammond
2. CoolArt: Flickr roundup
3. CoolArt: Jeff Bridges: Pictures