I think that everyone wishes to maintain mental well-being. Although we simply try looking at the bright side of life, there are sometimes people who find it annoying for some reason. I had been thinking about this strange relationship for a little while since I became very curious about this topic, and I found a very interesting idea; others are the reflection of one's self.
One day, I was hanging out with a good friend of mine. We were catching up on my recent issue with a person who passed severe judgement on my positive attitude toward life. Then, she told me that this person's attitude of not accepting me being happy was a reflection of myself and asked what had been restricting me from being a state of content. This question was very fresh yet seemed very difficult to answer. So I decided to observe my behavior and thought about what was blocking me from being a state of mental well-being. After several weeks passed, I had started noticing something, and that I felt much more content when I was working on my photography, but I was resisting my desire for creativity and living my life with photography by focusing on a sense of insecurity and concern about my creativity. During my awareness, my mind began to be much clearer, and I became more open with myself and focused on letting me be who I wanted to be.
After the discovery, creativity has welled up in me much more than before. Now, I truly appreciate the person who judged me because I feel free and happy about being myself. Perhaps, beginning to dislike the person is an usual reaction, but I cannot choose to dislike the person because the person is a reflection of myself and has shown me what I need to work on. Because I cannot hate myself.
* A big thanks to Tina who always open my mind with her wisdom and give me great insights about life!
The first time I had photographed Nozomi when she had yet not known anything about falling in love.
The pure white condition of her heart and soul reminded me of a snow field which nobody had marked yet. I told her that women would become even more beautiful when they had experienced being in love. I had thought it was a great advantage of being born as a woman. I was very curious how it would change her perspective when she experienced being in love.
A few years later, she had met a wonderful person and got married. It was my honor to have an opportunity to photograph her and her husband during my visit to Japan. Because I had not seen her since the last time I photographed her, I was filled up with excitement and almost cried when I met her. She had remained pure yet grown into a refined woman.
Since the last time I photographed her, I have also got older and have thought about maintaining mental well being as a woman more than when I was in twenty. During the experiences, I have come to the facts that many of us have a great fear of aging, and we have been afraid of being invaluable as a woman when wrinkles cover our face, and we become incapable of having a baby. But I have met a lot of older women, and they are all very confident and comfortable in their skin and have reconfirmed that real beauty of being a woman is undefinable by these time-limited conditions. I saw the beauty that shined from inside of them through their eyes, smiles and positive attitude toward life. They had showed me that the best advantage of being a woman was that we could transform into a more beautiful being with knowledge, education, and compassion for others.
Now I have the different perspective about being a woman, so I am even more curious how she will be growing with what she gets from the experiences through her life. I hope that I can follow up with her at each of her life events and photograph her transformation.
Last week, I had a great opportunity to do editorial shoot for Baracuta G9 Jacket with Darian from Free/Man.
It was a simple editorial shoot and was my pleasure to be a part of it.
"I think it looks great, you and Nanae did a wonderful job portraying Baracuta in a different light. I am very happy with how the images turned out and the article was spot on. Please forward my thanks and regards to Nanae for shooting such a beautifully stylized editorial."