My photo works are composed of two components: art to create (what I want to do) and documentary/journalism to capture (what I have to do), and both works maybe completed as self designed photo-books.

My images are often taken with the perspective of an expatriate Japanese. Though I have been living away from home over 20 years, my creations are still deeply rooted into my childhood in northeast Japan. Being away from home became my most important drives for photography. Through photographing, I seek connections to my origin.

When I was settling down in my new home, as a reaction to the unfamiliar environment, I tried photography using various ways to improvise capturing home. Compared to my rural village, my new home seemed thoroughly modernized and overly organized, leaving little space for raw and improvised places feeding human emotions. In the photography, I try to create alternative realities, which may re-connect me to my familiar world and childhood memories.

In 2011, the devastating earthquake hit north Japan, causing the Tsunami and the nuclear power plant explosion. These events in my homeland urged me to face the fact that one’s home is not a stable place and shocked my innocently unsuspecting idea that my home would be there forever. After that, I started new series to measure the physical and psychological distance to my home. By working on these, I hope to capture the world directly surrounding myself through my own views as an expatriate.