America: A Conversation with a Magnum Photographer

A photographer’s story and what I have made of it. (Part Four)

March 2023. I was chosen and invited to the Chico Portfolio Review 2023, held each year in Montana, and what happened there stays deep in my memory.

I went alone, with resolve, into a rural America where you never see a Japanese face. “Fading Away,” the project of the last chapter, was what I submitted to this Chico Review. I speak only broken English, and yet, strangely, I set out for Montana without the least unease.

March, still cold. When I arrived, there was no snow yet. In the arrivals lobby, where there were few people, several who seemed bound for Chico had gathered.

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The story goes back one day. Tomorrow I would fly from Los Angeles International on a domestic flight to Bozeman. The Chico staff had a fixed time to meet me at the airport, so on the day I landed in Los Angeles from Japan I planned to stay at a cheap hotel nearby. There seemed to be a shuttle bus running from the airport to the hotels, and I went around and around looking for the stop, and at last found what looked like the right bus and got on. A bus, though not the kind that runs in Japan — a full-size van, in the American way. Inside, the large seats built in the American way, and the smell of car air freshener, caught my nose. From the rearview mirror hung an orange air freshener in the shape of a maple leaf. It was still swaying a little. It had been so from the moment I arrived at Los Angeles International, but whatever country I go to, I remember the moment the aircraft door opens and I step down into the airport. The first thing that tells you that you have come to a foreign country is that particular smell, different in every country. It differs from country to country. Or is it from city to city? Humidity and smell overlap, wrap themselves around the body, and give rise to the tension of having come to a foreign land. Looking out at the Los Angeles suburbs in the evening as the bus began to run toward the hotel, I was thinking of such things. The bus arrived right in front of the hotel.

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The reason I want to choose America, and not Japan, as the place to send my art from lies in the depth of that country’s embrace.

When was it that I first visited America? Perhaps the year after the year I entered the studio as an assistant. Which would make it some forty years ago. I do not remember exactly. But I remember that it was my first time abroad. All of it was too much of a shock. The America I had seen in films, the America I had heard in music, spread out before my eyes. The experience in America became, I think, a resolve within me. To live by photography. That was the resolve.

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Once I stepped inside the American art world, the difference in scale was shown to me plainly, vividly. Photographers chosen from around the world gather, and each has their photographs they have brought assessed. Those who assess are people of worldwide authority in photography. Owners of famous art galleries devoted to photography. Museum curators. Editors of the world’s foremost photography magazines, Aperture among them. Full members of Magnum. Publishers who specialize in photographic books. For one week, you pass the time with people you could never otherwise have spoken to. Such an event would be unthinkable in Japan. That was precisely why it was America.

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Within that one week, there is a single day off when free time is given. Even the way the time is taken is very American. Some make appointments with reviewers and go on talking about photographs; some make a cheerful racket in the great pool at the hotel, the one called the hot spring. Each spends the time freely. I was heading first to the restaurant to eat breakfast. American breakfast is good. It is laid out buffet-style, and one ends up eating too much. I was walking along thinking such things when a reviewer, a university professor, spoke to me in broken Japanese. Won’t you come hiking with me at noon? The suddenness of the offer made me very glad. The professor had been to Chico many times, it seemed, and knew the land. An hour or so on foot, up the mountain, was what he proposed. We made ourselves understood to each other in broken Japanese and broken English. He said he loved his wife very much. She is my everything, he said. And I too said it back to him: she is my everything! That much English I knew. It was the moment we confirmed to each other what we meant. The professor was a very warm man. To this solitary Japanese, to whom no one had spoken, he laid himself bare and answered. It was a wonderful thing.

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I spoke with the Magnum photographer as well. He was a man partial to Japan. The photographs he takes are of the kind that are very hard to understand. He kept no house and travelled the world, going and taking photographs. In his face, more than you could have imagined from his photographs, understanding and humility and kindness seeped through. Magnum is a formidable body. It takes in a man like this as a full member, and supports Magnum photographers all over the world. He told me there is a bar in Shinjuku, in Japan, where famous photographers from around the world often come. I hardly drink, so I had no idea such a bar existed in Shinjuku. Their photographs are hung on the walls, filling every space, and there is a celebrated master of the house, he said. Go there. He said it to me. He wrote it by hand in a notebook, tore out the page, and handed it to me. My own photographs come from a completely different way of thinking from his, but intuition told me that here was a person who held, as a human being, the same sense of things. To face a Magnum photographer directly, one to one, to have him look at my photographs, and to talk — that had been one of the reasons I came here.

How many years have passed since then. When I catch sight of an article about him, I remember. I have still not managed to go to the bar.

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Many reviewers looked at my photographs. Among them was one photographer whose own work was of great interest to me. Photographs you could call an extension of the photographs I want to take. Beautiful color, and a rare and singular way of looking. Perfect composition. Timing. And a wonderful character. I chose that photographer as my first reviewer.

There are countless photographers in the world, but photographers who hold the same way of looking are few. That photographer was one of them. And on seeing my photographs, that photographer must surely have felt the same. That here was a photographer seeing this world with a way of looking like that photographer’s own. That does not mean the photographs resemble one another. It means that the sight which is assembled inside the heart, and which comes into being as a result of that, sees things in a similar way. In different countries, within different cultures, each living their own life. Through the medium of photography, I felt there was something held in common there, outside of words. I want to understand deeply this relationship between photograph and word. And so I wanted to ask that photographer how such a sight had been built, and how it might be given form in words.

That photographer said there was a Japanese photographer held in high regard. It was Toshio Shibata.

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That photographer thought highly of my photographs. And one thing was urged upon me. There is a very fine curator at one of Japan’s foremost museums of photography. Go and show that person your portfolio. In the end, I did not go. It may be an excuse, but I did not think I would be valued in Japan. You could say that was why I chose this place instead. But now, looking back, I think it was simply that I did not have the courage. Because if the photographs I had held on to for so long were rejected out of hand, that thought frightened me. A person’s heart is always breaking like a wave. Standing at the water’s edge, taking the measure of the state of my own heart, forever taking care not to get wet, not to drown, I cannot step forward. It is a wretched thing — knowing that about myself, and still the time flows away.

The event called the Chico Review showed me the depth of America’s embrace as a culture. In photography and in people alike. As a precious experience of recognizing where my own photographs stand, I take care never to forget it. Let me recall one more thing. In the story of the project “Fading Away,” there was the account of the car going off the wheel, and of being helped by a local person. And I closed it by saying that the same thing happens in America, too. This is that episode.

The week passed, and the Chico Review ended. Each of us set off home in our separate ways. Two days or so before, the snow had begun to fall. It was already March, and yet the temperature was as though it were the dead of winter. From time to time, a fierce wind blew, and outside the window, you could see the snow streaming sideways in it. I went into a small room like a library and sat alone, thinking. In that room were classical furnishings and books relating to the region — a space for enjoying a free day at Chico. Perhaps eight tatami in size. For America, a modest room. But for being alone, just right. At that time, I think, it was the one place where I could be at ease.

As the event of the final day, a party was held for everyone. The grand prize of the review was announced. Of course, it was not me, but the staff had prepared a special prize thoughtfully. Before I tell that, I must explain. For this event, to cover the poverty of my English, I had brought a certain high-tech translation device. Each of us wore one earphone, and when we spoke in our own language, it was interpreted and came through the earphone — a high-tech piece of equipment. In truth, I think it was this translation device that won the special prize, but they gave it to the strange photographer who had come from Japan. It was called the High-Tech Award. Nothing to do with photography, is it. But never mind. This prize — they wanted to leave what I had done here not only as an experience but as a form, a thing. That, I think, was their feeling. I was glad.

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The kindness of Americans toward a traveler is, even to my Japanese eyes, a culture worth honoring. I left Chico and headed for Bozeman International Airport. Heavy snow had been falling for days. Allowing time, the flight was set to leave the next morning. And so here in Bozeman, again, I had booked a cheap inn. A town small enough to walk around in its entirety. I had meant to stroll through this town today, but the snow was heavier than I expected, and I was in some difficulty. From the airport to the hotel was too far to walk, and yet not far enough for a taxi. So my first plan had been to walk from the airport, taking photographs, strolling through the town on my way to the hotel. But this snow. Heavy snow. I wore waterproof boots, but the snow was deeper than my ankles, up to my shins. And on top of that, heavy luggage. There was nothing for it, so I began to walk, and it was harder going than I had thought. My right foot sinks into the snow. Then my left foot sinks into the snow. At this rate, how long would it take to reach the hotel? I was at a loss. The snow grew heavier still. I stopped in the middle of the road. As if to catch my breath, I put both hands on my knees, bent a little, rested, and walked on. There was no one else walking anywhere near. I checked Google Maps. There was still a considerable distance to the hotel. Then, all at once, a car stopped beside me. This street was a very large one. Three lanes each way, I think. Snow had piled along the shoulder, and it looked like a difficult place for a car to stop. The driver was a woman. Seeing me trudging unsteadily through the heavy snow with a great rucksack on my back, she seemed unable to bear it and had stopped. There was the sound of a motor and the car window came down. Abruptly, in a loud voice, she said to me: Get in the car! When I answered, I’m all right, she said, just get in! — sitting in the driver’s seat, swinging her arm in a great gesture, beckoning me. Again I said, I’m quite all right! Still, she pressed me hard to get in. She repeated that great swinging motion of her arm. Told this much, I could not flatly refuse. I bowed deeply to her and, rude as it was, climbed into the back seat of the car. Where are you going? she asked. I said, I’m heading for a hotel near here. Two or three kilometers from here, perhaps. As she drove, she asked me where I had come from. From Japan, I answered. Thank you. Thank you. I went on saying it to her, over and over. When I had repeated it so many times, she asked me: in a moment like this, how do you answer in Japan? I answered. You say dō itashimashite. I pronounced it for her several times. Dō itashimashite, dō itashimashite. She seemed to understand. She moved her head up and down, nodding. And while we were doing this, the car arrived right in front of the hotel. From my heart, I said, truly, thank you. And at the last, as we parted, she said one thing to me in Japanese.

“Dō itashimashite.”

I had not even asked her name.

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This was an important lesson from the journey to Chico. To reach out a hand to someone in difficulty, and to help them. There is nothing shameful in it. It is courage. To hold out a hand, and to receive one — both were courage.

What happened in Aomori happened here too, in America.

And so the next story begins. It begins in the study.

TETSUYA OOMURO

A note to the reader

This is not a translation.

The Japanese and the English were each written in their own language. Nothing here was carried across from one tongue into the other. What was carried across was the whole of what I meant. Every line has been read and confirmed by me.