Nobuyoshi Araki
This is an accidental portrait. I've never met Araki. I was in Tokyo in late April of 1988. The 29th was the birthday of the aged Emperor Hirohito. It was common knowledge that he was dying of cancer. It is the ritual of Japan's emperors that on their birthdays they address their admirers from a glassed-in balcony at the Royal Palace. Hundreds of people wait in long lines to file into a large courtyard. Only on the Emperor's birthday and on January 2 is the public allowed onto the grounds of the Imperial Palace. The Emperor and his family come out and he speaks into a microphone, greeting his subjects, they wave paper flags and shout their best wishes. They respectfully file out and another group fills the courtyard and the ritual is repeated. Some in the crowd are old royalists who long for the power of the Emperor to return. Most of these royalists are very right wing and some even arrive with a platoon of their uniformed henchmen, in perfect file and military precision.
I wanted to go to see the spectacle. None of my friends cared to accompany me, as they felt this was a sort of political statement they could not make. It was too associated with a sort of far-right nationalism that has been on the rise in the US and Europe as I write this. I wanted to see and photograph it, and none of the political stigma would adhere to me as a foreigner. I went alone.
It was a rainy day, matching the somber mood of the crowd. Some brought their children; I suppose to witness an historical changing of eras.
I photographed through three repetitions of the ritual. Most people I saw were wearing dark colors. One young woman stood out for her youthful beauty and her white clothing. She had powdered her face white in the tradition of the young apprentice geisha. She seemed to glow in a crowd of gray. There was no one else among the hundreds who presented themselves in any similar fashion. I approached and photographed and if she noticed me she never acknowledged it. I am not generally known as a street photographer but I travel a great deal and normally carry a camera and if something attracts my attention I often make a few exposures.
When I returned to California I looked at my negatives and found that the best image of the lovely young woman was ruined by a balding, mustached man, wearing four layers of clothing and holding a camera. He had a sort of bug-eyed look even through sunglasses. I couldn't use the image and even if he hadn't been occupying a central position in it, it wasn't a very good photograph. It was a good memory however. The Emperor died nine months later and his son replaced him, and now the new Emperor's birthday, December 23 is the holiday.
In 1999, eleven years later, I was in Paris and I visited an exhibition by the famous Japanese photographer, Araki at the Centre national de la photographie. The Centre has since been blended with the Patrimoine photographique, and is now ensconced in the Jeu de Paume.
It was a large exhibition with a grand catalogue. There were rooms upon rooms of Araki's flowers, his explicit nudes in bondage and his congested black and white cityscapes. I entered what might have been the seventh gallery and there was a large print made from MY negative! I couldn't believe what I saw. It was my photograph of the young woman in white. My picture in HIS show. It stopped me cold. How is this possible, I wondered? I looked closely. I was somewhat certain it was one of my photographs and absolutely certain it was the same woman, at the same event. I saw the same people in the crowd that were all over my proof sheet. Stunned and confused I bought the catalog and left the museum.
Back in California I consulted my negatives and proof sheets from 1988. I found the four rolls of film from the Emperor's birthday and even with a magnifier, I couldn't be sure it was one of my images in his show and catalog. I printed several frames with the young woman and it became clear that the image in his show was not mine but was shot from within inches of where I had shot my image. The same people were in the background. I went online and looked up Araki and there was a picture of him…the balding, mustached guy who had ruined my image was in fact, Araki. I was courteous enough not to appear in his image of the woman! But I'd love to see his outtakes. I'm sure I ruined those shots for him. Here then is my portrait of Araki working.
Of course I assumed that we had both happened upon the same beautiful woman and photographed her. Seventeen years later, in 2016, while I was recalling the episode for this text I went online to refresh my thoughts on Araki and came to another startling revelation. In his 1989 book, Tokyo Story, there was a different image of the celebration for the Emperor, without the young woman. But there was also another image of her seated on a subway train after the Imperial event. She had accompanied Araki to the palace as his model. I had stumbled into HIS photo shoot and worked with HIS model. I now understand that I was the intruder, not Araki! I still wonder if I appear on his proof sheets.