Gallery talk at the current exhibition of Yoshitaka Goto’s photographs at Chignitta Space. Since the exhibition is also a commemorative exhibition for the publication of his photo book “Mission,” Mr. Nakao, owner of the publisher “233Press,” joined us online for the talk. We talked about Goto’s endless challenges in multiple-exposure landscape photography on film.
Yoshitaka Goto
Graduated from Kyoto Sangyo University, Faculty of Business Administration.
Freelance photographer, founded the photography agency JamArts in 2018, registered artist for digmeout by FM802/FM COCOLO, discovered film cameras made by Lomography, which originated in Russia in 2008, and put aside the digital SLR cameras he had been using until then. Inspired by Lomography users around the world who enjoy taking pictures without being bound by stereotypes, he immersed himself in multiple exposures, creating computer graphics and science fiction film-like worlds using analog techniques such as multiple exposures and cross process development. His works are sometimes fantastical and sometimes crazy, and have been highly acclaimed in various competitions. His works have been exhibited in solo shows in Japan and at art fairs in Japan and abroad.
His works have been used for various advertisements, book covers, music jackets, corporate calendars, and other artwork. He also teaches film camera workshops at various schools. He has also appeared as a guest at talk events in Japan and abroad, and published a photo book “Inception” (Buffalo Press) in 2018, “X-ing” (233 Press) in 2019, and “Mission” (233 Press) in 2023.
Gallery Talks
Thank you very much for visiting our gallery. Today’s gallery talk is brought to you by our guest, Mr. Nakane of Gallery Setagaya 233 online. Mr. Nakane, please welcome. First of all, Mr. Goto, please introduce yourself and Mr. Nakane.
Goto: I am a photographer. My name is Goto. I mainly use a camera called Lomography to make my photographs. My main style is “multiple exposure” photography, and I have just published a book of my work, and I am having an exhibition of it in Tokyo and Osaka.
Mr. Nakane is the owner of “Gallery Setagaya 233” in Sangenjaya, and he produced this photo book. Mr. Nakane, myself, and the designer Mr. Koyake teamed up to produce the crowdfunding project from October last year. I have known Mr. Nakane for about 15 years, and I see him whenever I visit Tokyo. He also supported me when I became independent, and he has fully supported my activities in Tokyo, so I wanted to connect with Mr. Taniguchi as well, so he is appearing online today.
I am Nakane. I am Nakane, and it is a pleasure to meet you. I always enjoy hearing Taniguchi-san’s talks. I see that many of you have helped with crowdfunding today, and I would like to thank you for that.
On behalf of Goto, that is (laughs).
I have known you for a long time now, since the first edition of UNKNOWN ASIA, so 2015?
Goto: I met Taniguchi-san in 2015, but before that, there was a project called “digmeout” that Taniguchi-san was running at 802, which was an online “daily audition” where people could look at your work, and I applied several times and received comments. After that, I first met Taniguchi-san at a briefing session in Nagoya for the first art fair called UNKNOWN ASIA.
When we met, you were working and taking pictures as a hobby.
Goto: That’s right.
How did you come to take pictures with Lomography?
Goto: I liked to travel, so I took pictures on my trips, and although they were digital at the time, I showed them to my friends and colleagues and made photo books out of them. They were quite well received, so I decided to study photography a little more and started studying cameras through correspondence courses. After about 3 or 4 years, I was getting tired of taking pictures with a digital camera. The performance of today’s cameras is so good that, in extreme cases, anyone can take a beautiful picture by pressing the shutter release button. I began to feel like I was being forced to take pictures by the camera, rather than taking pictures myself. At that time, I became interested in film cameras, and at first I tried using a “Holga” camera, a so-called “toy camera” with a simple structure, but it really didn’t take pictures the way I wanted, and I didn’t know the result until the film was developed. It was new and interesting, unlike digital cameras. Later, I came across the current camera called Lomography and started using a model called “LCA+,” and I was hooked because it was easy to use and the colors in the photos were interesting.
Around that time, Lomography became popular in a magazine called “Olive” and there was a boom of cute girls carrying Lomo as a fashionable item. Everyone was taking pictures of the sky, café lattes, and zoos. LOL. I think it is a tough camera because it is a toy camera, so it doesn’t have a zoom, the shutter is simple, and the colors don’t come out the way you want them to.
Goto: The first time I was able to take multiple exposure photos was actually an accident. I forgot to wind the film after taking the picture, and the landscape overlapped. It was a photo of a yellow cab, a person, and a mosque taken in India. It was a mistake, but I thought it was kind of interesting, so I entered it in an international competition Lomo was running at the time, and to my surprise, it won the grand prize.
Oh, my. Laughs. How many entries did you receive?
Goto: I heard tens of thousands. Lomography Hong Kong sponsored the competition, and I was invited to attend the opening of the exhibition of winning works at a store in Hong Kong. I said yes and went there, interacted with various people from Asia, and became completely absorbed in this world. I had never won first place in my life before, so I thought, “This is how great it feels to be the best. Laughs. I thought that if I got into digital photography now, I would be a late starter and have no technique, and there would be no place for me, but I thought that if I got into the niche of multiple-exposure landscape photography with a film camera, I might be able to leave my name behind.
Even though it was a failed photograph. Laughs.
Goto: That’s right. Laughs
unknown asia (2017）
Is that when you first met Mr. Nakane?
Goto: It was much older, around 2008. We hit it off because Mr. Nakane was also using Lomo at the time, and over the years, he took a liking to my work, and I was able to participate in some of his exhibitions. I feel that my activities in Tokyo were made possible by Mr. Nakane’s support.
Mr. Nakane, how did you feel when Mr. Goto first asked you about quitting the company and going freelance?
Nakane：I am often asked for such advice, and since I used to be an office worker, I actively encouraged Mr. Goto. Photographers who take Lomographic photographs have been gathering at my gallery for a long time, but you were the only one who would go abroad and take multiple-exposure photographs across different countries. I think it was an outstanding idea.
That’s right. Mr. Goto’s photographs are a grand experiment that requires a lot of money and time. He takes a lot of time and effort to take multiple exposure photographs in Iceland on one side and Hong Kong on the other, and the results are not known until the film is developed, which is a very high hurdle for him to overcome. I think you used the title “risk taker” in your previous exhibition, and I think it is your “high risk, low return” approach, or rather, the fact that you take on the challenge of something so reckless, that is both your foolishness and your greatest appeal,
Goto: I really like the word “risk-taker. When I won a Lomo contest, I received a camera as a prize, and on the camera was written the words “risk taker and rule breaker. It was the spirit of the people who use Lomography. It’s the spirit of Lomographers: “Don’t shoot by the book,” “Don’t look through the viewfinder,” and so on. The word “risk taker” resonates with me because that is exactly what I am doing. It is also possible that a whole roll of film could go bad, but if you are afraid of that, you can’t do anything. In my case, I have to do something niche in order to get the job done, so I enjoy the risk. It is also interesting to be able to make a presentation that includes such risks in front of the actual finished photographs. I decided to just enjoy the process before thinking about the risks while shooting.
I hear that it is quite a difficult process.
Goto: Once the film is shot, we rewind it, set it back in the camera, and shoot a second time to overwrite it, but we have to think about the order of the shots. I have to think about the order of the shots.
Mr. Goto’s photographs are a grand experiment that requires a lot of money and time. He takes a lot of time and effort to take multiple exposure photographs in Iceland on one side and Hong Kong on the other, and the results are not known until the film is developed, which is a very high hurdle for him to overcome. I think you used the title “risk taker” in your previous exhibition, and I think it is your “high risk, low return” approach, or rather, the fact that you take on the challenge of something so reckless, that is both your foolishness and your greatest appeal,
Goto: I really like the word “risk-taker. When I won a Lomo contest, I received a camera as a prize, and on the camera was written the words “risk taker and rule breaker. It was the spirit of the people who use Lomography. It’s the spirit of Lomographers: “Don’t shoot by the book,” “Don’t look through the viewfinder,” and so on. The word “risk taker” resonates with me because that is exactly what I am doing. It is also possible that a whole roll of film could go bad, but if you are afraid of that, you can’t do anything. In my case, I have to do something niche in order to get the job done, so I enjoy the risk. It is also interesting to be able to make a presentation that includes such risks in front of the actual finished photographs. I decided to just enjoy the process before thinking about the risks while shooting.
I hear that it is quite a difficult process.
Goto: Once the film is shot, we rewind it, set it back in the camera, and shoot a second time to overwrite it, but we have to think about the order of the shots. I have to think about the order of the shots.
Xing” (left), a collection of works created with Nakane, and “Rule” (2022), a jacket by Naoto Inti Raymi.
Starting from the Lomography competition to receiving requests for jacket designs through Instagram, you have been actively using SNS to introduce and explain your works, haven’t you? This has had a positive effect, and you have been visited by many fans since the first day of the exhibition in Osaka on a weekday.
Goto: I always try to communicate and show up at various places. In a provincial city like Gifu, there is not much range, and even if I distribute my works on the Internet, it is not enough to tell people who I am.
I think it has been difficult for you to travel in Corona over the past few years, but how is it this year?
Goto: I am planning to go abroad for the first time in a long time in June, and I am going to the Czech Republic and Austria for a two-week shoot. I have a tight schedule again, and I will probably skip lunch again.
Please give a message to the audience.
Many of my photographs have a post-apocalyptic feel to them, and I often superimpose the natural world and man-made objects, but this is also meant to raise issues that people need to think about now. Also, the ultimate mission of this collection, “MissIon,” is to hand this book to my beloved director Christopher Nolan. I hope that by my sending it out, someone will pass it on to Christopher Nolan himself. Laughs.
Question from a visitor: Goto-san, you tell all the visitors how you take photos. What is your intention behind this?
To be honest, I don’t think anyone else can imitate my methods. The technique itself is not that difficult, but I don’t think I would be able to keep the spirit of challenge that high. I don’t want to keep it a secret, and I think, “If you can do it, do it. Laughs.
Mr. Sasanuki, who is in the audience, you know Mr. Goto well from UNKNOWN ASIA, and you have a collection of his works.
Sasanuki: It was very interesting to hear about your travels. I thought for sure that he did not shoot in a Russian roulette way, but I was again impressed by the thrilling nature of his photographs, which are not known until they are developed, even though he spent a lot of time preparing them, including the shooting process.I have two of Goto’s photographs in my collection, and I call them “disintegration-type” photographs, which sometimes inspire me. In my daily life, I get various thoughts and energy from Goto’s photographs.
Goto: This photo is titled “Return to Nature,” which expresses how cities are returning to the soil. I am glad you have it in your collection.
Sasanuki: You mentioned environmental issues earlier, but your photographs remind me of contemporary artist Olafur Eliasson. I thought that his photographs have something in common with the photographs he took of Icelandic landscapes from a fixed point of view and raised environmental issues.
Goto: Thank you very much. I am glad to hear you say so, Sasanuki-san.
「Return to Nature」
Mr. Goto, you are an analog multiple exposure artist, do you have a next new axis?
Goto: I am thinking of changing my method of expression, subject matter, and motifs. I hope it will be something with more of a sci-fi feel.
I really like it! How about shooting in space next time? LOL!
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