Japan National Award Winner

‘My wife and I lost our child to stillbirth at 18 weeks of pregnancy. In the days leading up to the cremation we spent time together at home, during which time I took many photographs. In contemporary society, photographs are easily shared, generated and consumed, and with the rise of social media and artificial intelligence, the meaning of photography as a medium continues to shift. However, pressing the shutter in front of my child brought a renewed awareness of photography’s fundamental qualities — its relationship to time and to the body. These photographs were not taken for the purpose of record or explanation. They are made simply to face the time that undeniably existed in that place. For me, looking at these photographs is an act of reaffirming the sensation of being alive.’