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Shoji Ueda Office, Four Girls
Shoji Ueda Office, From the series "Dune: Mode"
Shoji Ueda Office, My Wife on the Dunes III
Shoji Ueda Office, Self-portrait with Balloo
Shoji Ueda Office, A White Road, from the series "Children the Year Around"
Shoji Ueda, Museum Of Photography
"A dune is a gigantic horizon," declared Shoji Ueda clicking the shutter in his favorite huge atelier, the dune, with its infinite, clear transparency free of any sense of perspective or time. The Shoji Ueda Museum of Photography was founded in his homeland of Japan where he produced numerous works and which remained a life-long foothold for his activities. His masterpiece, "Four Girls," became the motif of the impersonal, modern building designed by Shin Takamatsu and "Four Girls" was also the work that determined the course of his art. In the film presentation room which Ueda himself took great pride in, you can admire a 600 mm camera lens--one of the world's largest--and learn and experience the principle of a camera mechanism using the entire room.
Ueda was born in Tottori Prefecture in 1912 and began to be interested in photography in middle school. His wish to enter an art school after graduating from middle school was discouraged by his parents who bought him a German Piccolette in compensation, but this just spurred his love for photography to a higher level. While he was producing works using the deformation method in imitation of Teikoh Shiotani (also from Tottori) who was already famous as an artistic photographer, he discovered by chance Modern Photography (published in the UK) and was strongly influenced by it. He first started experimenting with technical methods such as photogram and solarization, and then broadened the range of his expressional methods.
His unique approach of arranging the subject like an object against the backdrop of the dune and the sky, erasing even the clouds and footsteps to get a simplified effect, eventually earned the name "Ueda-cho" (the Ueda way) which was widely introduced throughout the world.
The popular trend among amateur photographers was that of "Realism Photos", without direction as proposed by Ken Domon. However, Ueda consistently kept taking "Photos with Direction". As Ueda said, "It is only natural for people to look straight at you when you turn your camera to them. Aren't you asking them for something false if you ask them to stay natural?" He succeeded in shortening the psychological distance between him and his models, achieving the desired result, a photo that reflected their personality.
Though Ueda kept working in his homeland, he grew to doubt if he should keep choosing his objects in a limited local region. With the invitations to exhibit his works overseas and the repeated exhibitions of his art, he became a regular traveler to Europe where, naturally, he took photos. On his first visit there, he experienced a déjà vu, encountering the world of soft focus created by the naturally soft light and shade, a world full of serenity and illusion.
For the first time, he experienced the confirmation that his days in his native land, his period of anxiety and doubt about his own decision to reject chaotic city life to live a quiet, removed life in the country was actually not a mistake for that life allowed him to pursue his own direction towards self-expression and sense of beauty. As if to bear testimony to this insight, from that moment his exhibitions enjoyed ever-increasing success and he was granted the Chevalier Award for Art and Culture by the French Government in 1996, underscoring the immense esteem in which he was held.
Ueda repeatedly called himself an "amateur photographer" stating that "because I only take photos of what I want to, I simply can't do otherwise." In so declaring, he set himself apart from where the distracting noises of the city, the whirlwind called realism, could bother him. In so declaring, he remained above all the vulgarity that surrounded him, thus allowing him to sharpen his own senses and creativity.
Full of curiosity, he was always attracted to anything new. He started his photographic activity with his Japanese Pearlette, obtained at age 15, later continuing with a range of makes including Linhof, Hasselblad, Leica and Rollei. When struck by a new idea, he would change his camera and pursue this new photographic possibility. His curiosity and vitality accompanied him in his later life and he started taking fashion photos after he had already turned seventy. His compositional method of arranging unrealistic objects following careful calculation was the height of surrealism. A day never passed in which he did not touch his beloved camera and his search for modernism continued until his death in 2000 at age 87.
by Kuniko Tanaka
Shoji Ueda Museum of Photography
Sumura 353-3, Saihaku-gun Kishimoto-cho, Tottori, Japan
Tel. 0859-39-8000 - http://www.japro.com/ueda/
9:00am-5:pm (Wed.-Mon.)
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