Mary McCarter- Weekly Artist Post 4

Koji Onaka

 Onaka is working in black and white and features mostly outdoor scenes or indoors looking outdoors in his shots. He seems to be working with some kind of DSLR camera that has very low exposure, making most of his shots rather dark. The first picture uses a blurring effect from being inside looking out at some kind of train or metro stop. The second photo also is an indoor scene looking outdoors, but he using the darkness of the room to highlight the flowers and the environment outside. The third is an outdoor scene were Onaka uses a car to draw clear attention to the foreground.

Onaka uses everyday life for his inspiration. The stillness and ever normal life of a slow living draws his interest. He obviously focuses on the average everyday life rather than more exciting and outrageous subject matter like you may see on a billboard or in the media. The first photo is a gloomy day obviously cold because there is snow on the ground, however real people are still out waiting to catch the train, perhaps going to work, or going to school, but either way these people still have to be out in the cold because they have to. The same idea is present in the other two photos, in the second it is just a quiet house looking through half opened windows, maybe this house doesn't have ac, the room appears to be some sort of work room.

Personally I really enjoyed these photos. In the artist's interview he talks about having an obsession with suburban life, and I think these photos encapsulate that perfectly. I am originally from a very small town with only two stoplights, so I can really relate to these photos and the idea that small town and the suburbs rarely change, there can be a building or a cat around for as long as you can remember, and I think that there is something really interesting and that it should be captures for the pure fact that it has been there so long. This is especially true in the third photo because the car is obviously old and junked and has been abandoned in a field in yet it has love and hearts written all over it. It is old and junked but it has a real story to tell, not a superficial idea of how real things and people are and how they are treated. I think these photos show that real life exists and it should be photographed too.