In the introduction to his series ‘One Two Three’, Japanese photographer Shin Noguchi shares a quote by the late Jazz Saxophonist Eric Dolphy:
“When you hear music, after it's over, it's gone in the air. You can never capture it again."
After his father passed away and long forgotten photos from his own childhood reappeared, Noguchi began photographing his three young daughters Yumeji, Kotoyo and Hikono.
The ongoing project started as a careful attempt to ease his mother’s loneliness and to spend more time communicating with his children, while strengthening their self esteem in the process.
‘One Two Three’ shows us intimate, funny and touchingly tender moments. Brief moments, that Noguchi himself describes as gifts his daughters show to him. Gifts which he can’t help but “catch” once they appear. And to intuitively click the shutter at the exáct right moment..well, this feels to him like hearing the magical but fleeting Jazz improvisations Dolphy was talking about.
Earlier today, as I looked up Eric Dolphy’s original quote, I found it to be just a little longer. It turns out that Dolphy had spoken additional words:
“...But if you listen closely, you can still hear the echoes.”
To me, it’s in these hidden words that lies the core of Noguchi’s work.
He enables us to perceive the rare echo of truly beautiful and ephemeral moments.
They are the echoes of a feeling.
And this is a feeling that Shin Noguchi might have very well described when he said:
“I never called my photography ‘art’, but definitely, my daughters show me what I feel art to be.”
Thank you Mister Noguchi!
xez
* all photographs copyright ©Shin Noguchi, click to enlarge.
Please have a look at Shin Noguchi’s impressive and moving body of work here:
https://www.instagram.com/shinnoguchiphotos/
https://shinnoguchiphotography.com/photo/one_two_three/