Toshio Shibata，高知县大川村桥，2007年 ©Toshio Shibata
Toshio Shibata is one of Japan's most prominent and respected landscape photographers, and he is known worldwide for photographing infrastructure in landscapes, photographing erosion barriers, catchment areas, roads, dams, and bridges, studying the unique appearance of these buildings in his hometown. Through his lens, the riverbed looks like origami and the waterfall looks like a kimono to explore the delicate balance between man-made architecture and nature.
Almost all of Shibata's works depict civil engineering projects in natural landscapes. These man-made structures can be found everywhere in the fields and hills of Japan, and their construction focuses first and foremost on function, such as preventing landslides, controlling flooding, and crossing mountains, so they should be completely separated from the pursuit of the pleasure of the image and beauty. However, Shibata uses the geometry of man-made structures in nature to separate the landscape in front of him from place and time, and thus from reality, which is similar to the effect of a painting.
Throughout Shibata's work, it seems that he prefers to add water to the picture. Water plays an important role in Japanese culture and religion. For example, water is one of the five elements of Japanese Buddhism (the five greats: earth, water, fire, air, and void) and embodies flexibility. Water represents what is flowing, flowing, and invisible in the world. Shibata uses long exposures to capture the strength, flexibility, and intrinsic grace of water as it overflows, hits, and glides over built dams, sluices, and canals. Even if one imagines the sound of a waterfall roaring in a magnificent civil engineering project, Shibata's picture is full of tranquility. The addition of water to the canvas also gives Shibata's work a sense of softness that forms a wonderful balance with the rigidity of the human structure.
Toshio Shibata，足尾町，1999年 ©Toshio Shibata
Toshio Shibata，三富村，2000年 ©Toshio Shibata
Toshio Shibata，川内町，2002年 © Toshio Shibata
Toshio Shibata，群马县水上町，2005年 © Toshio Shibata
For more than 30 years, Toshio Shibata has traveled to Japan and the United States, taking a series of photographs that show how much humans have shaped the world around them. These photographs combine landscape painting with documentary realism and go beyond mere physical descriptions. In fact, Shibata's work isn't just about the environment; He doesn't want to simply shame us for destroying nature. Rather, his aim is to showcase our amazing creativity (and destructive power) and allow the audience to draw their own conclusions about the impact of humanity on the world. As Marc Feustel writes in the preface to Shibata's book Contact:
"[Shibata] describes his photographs as 'borrowing landscapes': they are not images of landscapes, but images made with landscapes. While they document the world they depict, this is not their primary function. On the contrary, the delicacy of these compositions seems to invite us to see the world in a slightly different light than before, to rethink what the landscape might be. ”
"[Shibata's] borrowed landscapes change our sense of scale by flattening perspectives and omitting the sky, or push the composition toward abstraction by emphasizing geometric lines and panels of color. In fact, after two decades of working in black and white, Shibata turned to color, which brought his work closer than ever to the work of Paul Cézanne, an idol of his student days, whose paintings led him to art in the first place. But Shibata did not try to create paintings using the medium of photography. He is acutely aware of the fundamental differences between these two artistic mediums. For Shibata, it was crucial that his images were recognizable at a glance as belonging to reality, while at the same time being able to create their own world. ”
——亚历山大·斯特雷克(Alexander Strecker)
"Japan was in a mess at the time, and it wasn't a good place to take pictures. So I try to find beauty in the things that most people ignore." When I first started photography, the photos I had seen only appeared in newspapers. There are no photographs in museums or galleries in Japan. Then, in 1979, I went to a photo exhibition in Paris and was amazed at how many people would buy photographs.
When I returned to Japan, I started taking photographs that showed the contrast between our infrastructure and the surrounding nature. At that time, Japan was a mixture of Western culture and ancient Japanese traditions. It wasn't a photogenic place, so I chose to focus on finding the beauty of unphotogenic architecture, something that most photographers would overlook.
I often stumble upon places where I can take pictures, such as this bridge. In 2007, I photographed the bridge while driving around Kochi Prefecture in southern Japan. The bridge is close to a small logging village called Okawa. At that time, the afternoon sun was shining with golden sunlight, and I stopped the car and pulled my big tripod out of the car. The sun was setting soon and setting behind the mountains and the bridge, so I had to hurry. I put down my camera and started shooting. Without warning, the sunlight disappeared, and disappeared in an instant.
Like many of my photographs, its beauty is accidental. I'm so excited to be able to capture this light and color in such a short amount of time. Ten years ago, I started taking color photographs, and a lot of them involve red and green, which are complementary colors. In my opinion, the red paint is to prevent the bridge from rusting, but from a purely aesthetic point of view, it is both beautiful and vibrant.
After the photo was taken, I left and usually never came back. But I've been back to the bridge twice, and each time it looks completely different: like a face with different makeup. I never imagined it would be so beautiful, so peaceful. I was told that they liked the photo, that they had a print of the photo, and they asked me what I thought of it. They were surprised when I just said, "I think it's pretty good."
There are many places in Japan that are historically or politically significant. I don't like to have this kind of knowledge about a topic beforehand, because then I can't be neutral. My favorite thing to do is pull out a map, point to a new place, and drive there looking for something interesting. I don't want to be surrounded by people while I'm working, I want to work quietly and comfortably. I love the countryside in Japan. Every place I go to is a live studio.
Toshio Shibata，大月市，2005年 ©Toshio Shibata
Toshio Shibata，栃木县日光市，2008年 ©Toshio Shibata
Toshio Shibata ，长崎县西海市，1997 年 © Toshio Shibata
Toshio Shibata, Coolidge Dam, San Carlos, Arizona, USA, 1997 © Toshio Shibata
Toshio Shibata, Toshio © Shibata
Toshio Shibata，鹤冈市，2019年 © Toshio Shibata
concerning
Toshio Shibata was born in Tokyo in 1949 and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Oil Painting from Tokyo National University of Arts in 1972, Master of Fine Arts from Tokyo National University of Arts in 1974, and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium in 1975.
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