Hiroto Sekiguchi
Living in Online
[ EPF 2013 SHORTLIST ]
His name is Yuki and my high school mate.
He was a shy but cheerful boy with sense of humor. After graduation, he studied hard and entered well-known university in Japan. He liked filmmaking. Once, his piece got awarded in a contest. He dreamed of being film director and started making feature film with professional actors. The goal was Festival International du Film de Cannes. He also studied scenario in school and watched dozens of movies. Also he loved a girl just like other boys.
But something started crumbling. He could not complete the feature film. While he missed some credit, classmates graduated university and found job. A close friend, who shared dream of being scenario writer together, got awarded in famous contest but he didn’t. This guy also took a girl he loved. He gradually stopped seeing movies. The keyboard used for writing scenario became a tool for is only chatting and E-mailing.
Now, aged 28, Yuki spends most of his day playing of online game. He is in love with a player met in a game. He has spent more than 2000 hours in online world. Cups of coffee and cigarette keeps him awake whole night. When birds start to twitter, he collapses and fell asleep.
Yuki says. “I know my situation is a mess. But I just feel one day it turns out somehow.”
By shooting him, I started seeing my country in a different way. Japan is one of economically advanced country. It is a society where people can live without eagerness to survive. People who live as floating in the ocean are not something rare in my country.
With the Emerging Photographer Fund Grant, I will have more time to spend with them to know what they see and what they think as a man living in the same generation. This story will be more brightness by spending long time. In the end, I am going to show my story at an exhibition and a book.
Bio
Hiroto Sekiguchi is a Japanese photographer based in Tokyo.
His work has been published internationally such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Paris Match, and Le Monde.
And his photos has been exhibited in various galleries and international photo festivals such as Visa Pour L?image, Espase Dupon, Photo kina, Chicago Photography Center, UN Headquarters, fovea exhibitions, Old Seoul Station Museum, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.
He has won several awards including Pictures of the Year International, NPPA Best of Photojournalism, Prix de la Photographie Paris, Yonhap International Press Photo Award, International Photography Awards.
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I really like this essay Hiroto; both the photography and the back story. The photographs are quite contrasty, but not artificially so (more in the tradition of Japanese photography); great use of black and white. You invoke a feeling of claustrophobia in the essay.
I really hope that you keep this essay going as I look forward to seeing more. Congratulations Hiroto (and thank you Yuki),
Mike.
What an excellent piece of journalism here…well done Hiroto!
The style of the images, the high contrast really helps to drive home this subjects reality…a reality that could afflict so many, regardless of country or even age, as we go forward into an ever more connected – yet isolated era of humanity – an era driven in large by technology. This is uncharted territory. I fear for the generations of children who might so easily lose imagination and the tactile experience of being “kicked outside” for the summer…to find a creek or a fire hydrant to play in, or simply to seek out companionship from their peers, elders.
-Jeremy
Fascinating. Sad. It’s mental illness. Difficult to photograph, I’m sure. But it’s these very small stories that I think can be the most revealing and touch parts of all of us (as I sit in the dark basement writing forum comments). One of my favorite films is Satijyat Ray’s ‘The Big City’ about a small mistake that takes on epic proportions in normal families life. Good job. Thank you.
I like it. Captures “things as they are.” Welcome to the 21st century. Just waiting for the world to change and hoping things will turn out right.
I like the high contrast in these images. Fits the subject.
Congratulations for the essay. I like it a lot, the light and the darkness, some points of view in the pictures, the story. Online indoor life, online relatioships, it´s sad… but it really happens nowdays…
Cheers
Hiroto has taken on what I would have considered an impossible project. I can’t imagine how I would have photographed a person who basically spends all his time in front of a computer. Where is the variety, the interest, the story? And yet Hiroto has presented a brilliant evocation of what this man’s life is like, and he does it in a way that never relies on cliches or gimmicks. A magnificent accomplishment! I only hope Hiroto will continue working on this project. It is timely, important and original.