“CONTACT ME”
At the turn of the century, I find myself thinking again of the radiance of the moon, which has never stopped charming us from afar in space, and at last led mankind to reach the moon. We are in the midst of the greatest reforms that we have ever experienced, and although science has made rapid progress, we find it difficult to catch up with it both mentally and spiritually. In this century, not only a few selected people but anyone who wants will be able to enjoy a space trip. What is expected to happen in space is beyond our imagination, and it is impossible to predict what will occur. Therefore, what we have to do is to make our mental power strong enough to cope with our advanced state of civilization. It is very interesting to observe a current phenomenon, that is, photography as a form of self-expression has become a daily event led by the younger generation, who have keen sense of the times. While continuing to take pictures with a strong will, I am beginning to regard what happens by accident as something unavoidably caused by me. I have had this strong feeling since I was stay alone in a Bedouin (nomad people) tent in Wadi Desert (Desert of the Moon) in Jordan, taking pictures after giving up my job working on a ship. I was so attracted to the desert. And, my urge to enter this competition in spring (my first plan was to enter the summer competition) drove me to produce my first work “CONTACT ME.” Now, having received this wonderful prize, I am confident about my ideas. I want to suggest with this work that thiscentury is raising the curtain on a New Cosmos of Photography. I believe that photographs make us aware of the strength of mind, which is similar to the radiance of the moon.
Selecting judge: Fumio Nanjo
This work is totally different from the others. The atmosphere is not like the others. Most of the entries for the New Cosmos of Photography competition present the usual scenes, personal or of everyday life, but this work is different. Contrary to tourist pictures taken while traveling in a foreign country such as India, with colorful pictures of a marketplace, her work impresses us with a vast space, boundless extent, long passage of time, and changing light of the sky. In addition, we can glimpse, through her work, our unknown world, where things like the Gulf War and old Arab towns are all mixed together. We can see a world that is different and important. Her work, which connects that world with New Cosmos of Photography, presents a kind of breakthrough, and in that sense, this is a unique work.
