How Masahisa Fukase and his art changed me




If I asked you what your favorite sunset is, you would probably think of a day you were sitting alone or with a friend and consciously thought, 'Huh the sky today is pretty'. You might have had this thought hundreds of times but you can barely remember any of those beautiful sunsets. I used to think a lot about our ability to forget beautiful things and this made me take a lot of pictures, this helped me soothe whenever I was missing someone or something.



Around a year ago, I was looking at a photo book by Masahisa Fukase called 'Ravens' and felt so many emotions that left me thinking about him for two days straight. Fukase is from Hokkaido, a beautiful city in Japan. He was scared of death and missing out on moments that mattered, so he would capture everything. Fukase would click pictures that would win him many accolades, in fact, the photobook I was looking at is his magnum opus and is considered the best photo book by many critics. Professional success never filled the void or reduced the fears Fukase had, his obsession with freezing moments of his life made him miserable and pushed people away from him. This made him resort to alcohol and he eventually had a terrible fall at the bar after he drank too much and was in a coma for 20 years before he passed away.

Learning about his life and obsession made me question the idea of capturing something, why do we click a picture? I could never come up with an answer that convinced me. Then one day I was sitting alone and looking at a picture I clicked two years ago in Ooty and all the emotions from that day hit me. I realized why I click pictures, it feels like saving a checkpoint in a game. I know I can't live that moment again but at least I can experience the good or bad things that happened in my life. This is why I decided to take photography seriously. When everything is to end, I would want to lie back comfortably and cherish my past, because, at the end of the day, the one I miss most is myself from the day before. 

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