Ricardo Takamura

BIOGRAPHY

Authorial photographer based in São José dos Campos - SP, manifests in his photographs of night landscapes almost surreal realities, which are hidden from our eyes. Since an early age he was related to art, when he was still young he began to paint and sculpt in wood, passionate about light, he dedicated himself for a while to create sculptures with light and luminaries. When he started to dedicate himself to photography, he brought all the inspiration and knowledge he acquired in art. His work is closely related to cinematographic photography, seeking to freeze moments as if they were a single frame of a film stopped in time, transmitting sensitivity and emotion. Currently he is dedicating himself to the difficult task of approaching contemporary photography with his night photography and nature work, creating series that connect with staged photography, and refer to science fiction film scenarios.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

My relationship with my photography goes back to my childhood. I grew up on a farm in a transition area between the city and the countryside, close to the city, and at the same time far from everything.

As a child I fell in love with cinema, films and science fiction tales, and this living in a partly rural area and passion for science fiction tales sparked an interest in the unknown.

I often ventured into the small woods around my house at night. The mystery of the night enchanted me and at the same time aroused in me a fear of the unknown, what did the night hide?

At the same time I was enchanted by a sky that was still starry in the surroundings of my house, but as time went by the city grew and the lights took over the sky, and the stars began to disappear. 

I grew up with a Kodak Instamax and a Polaroid that was always without film, the prices were prohibitive at the time. Over time I was taking care of a family camera, but the photography that always aroused a passion in me ended up getting side and I was dedicated to other arts.

For some time I turned to painting with acrylics and soon I became interested in wood carvings. The light that has always been present in my life, as a child I had thousands of lanterns with me all the time, turned into a passion for modelling light, and I started to design luminaries sculpted in wood and iron.

For a long time I dedicated myself to painting and sculpture, with no pretensions of turning art into a way of life, and I ended up leaving photography aside. It was only with the arrival of the first digital cameras that I started to be interested in photography again. 

Free from the exorbitant expenses with photographic films, I began to experiment with new processes, digital cameras now allowed me to see a light that was beyond my eyes. And it delighted me that this light so faint and soft could be shaped and through it I could show an imaginary world that was mine alone.

And so photography came together with my old passion for film and science fiction short stories, and I became increasingly interested in telling stories within my photographs. At the same time, almost always the stories I was telling were about nothing, almost as if they were portraying a poetic void, a pause or a breath between one action and another in a film. 

This pause has a name in oriental culture, "Ma", which means pause (or interval) in Japanese, and talks about the importance of emptiness. Today much of my work speaks about this emptiness, a moment of peace in an imaginary world, transitioning between staged and cinematic photography.

Por: Ricardo Takamura