Satoru WATANABE
"demain"
softcover
Pages: 84 / photos: 46
Size: 210x210x90mm / 300g
Price: 3,500JPY
Release Date: January 2017
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After I started to ride a motorcycle, the distance had shortened rapidly. I was born and raised in a land surrounded by mountains and I was amused to find that it was so easy to go over these walls. It was the moment when my sense of time dramatically took a turn.
While I was riding on an inexperienced mountain road, I failed to make a steep curb and went down the road with the motorcycle. The footrest of the motorcycle shoved the pavement and I saw it clearly across my helmet like the vision was in slow motion. It was just a click of a second in actual time.
They say that the passing of time changes when we go through an accident.
They also say that your whole life flashes in front of your eyes in that last split second before death.
A psychologist friend taught me that it is the mind’s attempt to find the best possible solution to ensure survival. Within this very short duration, it analyzes its memory and attempts to find this answer from within a person’s life experience. Time passes relatively slow when the mind is turning at full speed.
A friend who fell off from a snow-covered mountain said his mind flashed back to his childhood days as he was sliding down the slope. He saw himself and his elder brother poking sticks at an anthill. He said “I don’t know why I thought about an anthill when I was about to die” with a wry smile. May be in his brain, sliding down the mountain and the memory of an anthill were connected. From what I hear about other people’s near-death experience, they say that memories do not flash back in sequential order but swarm collectively and are inconclusive. They all say that they felt like there was no end and it would last forever.
I think what I will recall at the brink of my death will be the mundane events in my life. I may recall the time and place of what I had seen or heard, or even the memories of my parents or of others that are buried deep inside me like going through an old photo album. |
Satoru WATANABE
"prana"
Pages: 84 / photos: 40
Size: 253x259x15mm / hardcover
Price: 3,800JPY
Release Date: December 2014
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“According to ancient Hindu philosophy, man is made up of five elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Wind and Ether. The term ‘prana’ means, “wind” in Sanskrit. The wind holds the energy of nature, and we take that energy into our body by breathing in deeply. “ I heard this story twenty years ago from an old skinny man with white hair and wide bulging eyes in Chichi-jima, in the Ogasawara archipelago. He was called the “legendary diver” who, at the age of fifty-six, accomplished the remarkable feat of diving one hundred and five meters into the deep blue sea without the help of any diving equipment.
When I take photographs, I sometimes I feel an invisible energy. I feel as though this energy exists, not only in the nature, but also in lives of each and every thing, including human lives. Whenever I try to express these feelings into words, I recall the term “prana” that the old skinny man used to refer to.
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Satoru WATANABE
"da.gasita"
Pages: 84 / photos: 40
Size: 253x259x15mm / hardcover
Price: 3,500JPY
Release Date: October 2012
Web-site |
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A memory of one winter day from my childhood flashes through my mind.
This memory is so vivid that I still remember how the snow felt under my footsteps.
My mother was carrying my baby sister on her back, so I must have been only four years old at the time.
With my baby sister strapped on my mother’s back, she held my hand as we walked in the town
of Yonezawa that one evening.
We were neither out shopping nor did we have a place to be we simply just strolled about town.
Since downtown was small, we just walked back and forth.
(Excerpts from the author's postscript) |