Previously I mentioned that Toe‘s photographer Yoshiharu Ota was exceptionally good. Then Martine told me that he was brother to the singer of the band Envy, which I’ve long enjoyed. So now, I found more of his stuff and indeed, continue to be impressed.

In his band photography especially, he manages to extract moments of particularly potent visual lyricism from the maelstrom of a live show, and presents them in single slices of radiant time. The more I look at them, the more I realize that they don’t “feel” silent. Or rather, their stark silence belies, in shocking contrast, an atmosphere with sound at its core. It’s impossible to imagine the scenes without inferring a feeling of aural energy permeating that place and time; everything is drenched with it.

Check out his website, “scape for us” and blog for more of Yoshiharu Ota and his excellent work.

[Link][2][3]

This entry was posted on Monday, December 18th, 2006 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Japanese Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.