Report on the Grand Prize Selection Open-Committee Meeting of New Cosmos of Photography 2006 (the 29th competition)
Overview of open selection meeting
The Grand Prize Selection Open-Committee Meeting, an open-to-public meeting to select a Grand Prize winner, began in a hall filled with an excited audience who had obtained entry through a general application process. Each finalist gave a presentation on concept, intent, and method of production, and his or her thoughts on the possibilities of photography.
The contents of their presentations varied. The group entry consisting of Mika Kitamura and Yuki Watanabe, who completed “TWO SIGHTS PAST” after taking photos of each other over four years, talked about the difficulties of photographing the other given their mutual personal feelings, and the power that photography has as a medium over the passage of time. Asako Shimizu, who created “On her skin” by taking photos of fantastic scenery at a salt lake in Bolivia, South America, talked of her attitude towards production in terms of how humans relate to the earth and the environment.
Then, Kozue Takagi, who produced “insider” in which she put two human images side by side—one is a mirror face image of the right side only, and the other is a mirror face image of the left side only, explained why she entitled the work “insider.” She thinks that the two human images in her work show two characters that lurk within a person. She also explained that her motive for or intent of her work was an inquiry into human beings.
The next speaker Palla, who made a large composite work entitled “found” from one black and white scenery photo, explained the distortion in the perspective of the work, while showing images. Izumi Yamada talked about how her complex, deep feelings towards the subject motivated her to create her work “Yoko x Matsuyo,” in which she photographed two faces of her mother, daytime and nighttime.
Yoshinori Henguchi, the last speaker, who displayed his entry “AKITARAOWARI,” which was originally in scrapbook form, in a simple way leaving ample blank spaces around, introduced the words he wrote about his work in the presentation.
