JWH Author's Voice Dream a little dream of …
Moso photographer - Kazuma Ogaeri refers to himself by such a title.His new photo collection "Railway and Girl" was published by Bunkasha in January 2008, and his exhibition, bearing the same title, was also held in Tokyo in early February. But what is "moso"? It's a Japanese noun and originally a psychiatric term. Its literary meaning is "delusion" or "obsession," but nowadays, we tend to use this word instead of "fantasy." So what does a moso photographer do? He converts his fanciful imagination into reality and portrays it. Brimming with curiosity, we went to the exhibition to meet this unique photographer. In his youth, Ogaeri's main photographic subject was trains. He always stood near the railway tracks with his camera, ready to shoot his local train - a steam locomotive - which only ran every other day. His new collection "Railway and Girl" is a combination of these railway pictures, most of which he took in his boyhood, and pictures of girls - young women, actually - that he has been taking for the last few years.      What he tried for this new collection was to go back to the old photographs' quality by using new technology. We tend to retouch photographs to make them look better, but he went the opposite way: he retouched his recent digital pictures to make them look as if they had been developed in a dark room. "I used a computer that used to belong to my son" smiled Ogaeri, "and my scanner is not anything special either." Even his cameras, the essential tool for his work, were obtained from auction sites or second-hand shops. He continued, "I don't buy anything expensive. If they are a bargain, I will go for them. I don't mind a small scratch or smudge on the viewfinder. It won’t be a problem as long as I get used to it." His Leica that he showed us looked like an old model. When we asked him which year’s model it was, he immediately answered: "I have no idea." He never pays fees to his models. No rewards, not even a cup of tea at a cafe after a shooting session. "The moment I take a picture has to be the best moment with my model," he explained. "I am scared to feel happier while having tea with her." Ogaeri, in his fifties, hopes he will still be taking pictures when he's 70.     
♠ Official site of Kazuma Ogaeri (in Japanese): http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~k-ogaeri/ ♠ To read about his other book Limit (YT）
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