Canon global

A surreal world slightly disconnected from reality.
A sad, tender, and mysterious story.
There is only one subject. His name is Yosshi Sakurai.
-23-year-old university student

I used scissors to cut up the portraits I had taken, assembled them in a three-dimensional form, and photographed them again to produce “georama photographs.”

To breathe life into the photographs, and to ensure, above all, that they were fun for me to take, I didn’t use any computer graphics. I made sure I used only analog methods.

To ensure that I did not miss any of Yosshi’s expressions as he danced about in only his underpants or lost himself in his thoughts, I fervently gripped the camera and snapped away. Later, feeling really glad that Yosshi had a buzz cut, I gripped the scissors and cut away. Square-headed Yosshi. Fingerless Yosshi. Please forgive me. My hand slipped.

Photographs are the ultimate entertainment.

I want to create photographs that are fun to look at no matter how many times you look at them. I want to create photographs that always offer new discoveries no matter how many times you look at them.

I am delighted to have won this prize because it will enable my work to be seen by lots of people. Thank you very much for selecting it. I would also like to thank Yosshi Sakurai for stripping down to his underpants all those times.

The way he has created the scenes is dynamic, and the work is interesting. It’s interesting because it has the power to really stir a person’s emotions. I feel that unless more challengers like him emerge, photography won’t be interesting. In terms of the level of perfection, I think he could still polish his work further, but I really liked his challenging creative attitude. I’m really looking forward to seeing, once he improves the quality of his pictures and further hones his image processing techniques, how far his works can improve with his own worldview. His work has impact, so I think that rather than put a lot of photographs into a single book, it would be more effective to cut their number and display them as large panels.