Niseko-based ski photographer Yoichi Watanabe's photo exhibition "Yukimori" is being held at Tomioka White Museum in Minamiuonuma City, Niigata Prefecture.
Watanabe is a person who was strongly influenced.
Watanabe is one of Japan's leading ski photographers, and has continued to publish his photographs in ski media such as BRAVOSKI since the 1990s.
With skiing as a lifestyle, he traveled around the world in his 30s, traveling around the world and continuing to shoot. His subjects are the same skiers, including the skaters who represent the scene at the time. Watanabe's style is that everyone, regardless of whether they are professionals or amateurs, adults or children, puts on skis and shoots equally well.
Their riding photos that Watanabe cut out also decorated magazines such as Patagonia advertisements and POWDER MAGAZINE at the time.
In addition to publishing the photographs he has taken in magazines, he is constantly presenting them through photobooks and exhibitions.
Right) Daisuke Sasaki, Austria/San Anton , a veteran free skier, snowboarder, and telemark skier representing the current era.
Watanabe was one of the many photographers who could ski.
He puts on his skis and goes into the snowy mountains and forests to continue filming. Then he realized something while he was in the snowy mountains wearing skis from all over the world. Most of the places in the world where skiing is possible are “Alpine” with exposed rocks. The Alps are an inanimate world ruled by rocks.
Japan, on the other hand, is surrounded by forests and is filled with a wide variety of creatures, who live by supporting each other. I believe that this spirituality is still alive in the Japanese people. Watanabe, who has traveled around the world, was able to notice and capture the world he saw in photographs for this exhibition.
“I have been skiing for a long time, and I have presented my work while skating around the world. ``I can't do it without it. This time, it will be a work that focuses on the surrounding mountains, trees, nature, and other places where I am allowed to play,'' says Watanabe.
Watanabe goes into the mountains to ski. There he takes photographs of the trees and forests he encounters. It is a landscape that I encountered when I went skiing, and although it is a landscape photograph, it is also a variety of scenery that I would not have encountered if I had not been skiing.
Just because it's a ski photo doesn't mean it's all about skiers. Focusing on all the surroundings surrounding skiing, such as the surroundings and the trail after skiing, I release the shutter when I feel the beauty.
It's not just now that I started to look at nature, I've been shooting for a long time. However, with the development of the global environment and Niseko where he lives, which has become noticeable in recent years, his awareness is increasing.
“I have consistently photographed the coexistence of humans and nature. There are many categories of skiing, but there is no change in the fact that we are immersed in nature. But I don't hear about places to ski or nature.I think it's okay to talk about that kind of thing more if it's the same ski.I wondered who would do that.
Another problem is the global environment. The nature surrounding the earth and snow is clearly changing, such as record heavy rain and light snow. As a skier and as a photographer, I would like to record this and raise issues about how to face it and live.
The Niseko area where I live now is attracting attention for skiing and snowboarding. Real estate is being developed and trees are being cleared. The property is well advertised. The environment in which I live close to me is being destroyed. I wasn't born and raised in Niseko, but I like the place called Niseko and moved there myself, so I'm more sensitive to such things than others. It's a message that 'Let's all think together' about the destruction of the beautiful natural environment."
"Yukimori" captures nature through skiing, and reflects a world beyond mere sports photography. Because we enjoy the snowy mountains, I think we should face the natural environment and snow and think about snow forests.
Minamiuonuma City Tomioka White Museum
142 Kamiyakushido, Minamiuonuma City, Niigata Prefecture
10:00-17:00
Entrance fee: 500 yen
Photo exhibition until March 23rd
*The museum will be temporarily closed from February 1st to 26th due to renovation work.
For details, please check the special exhibition website.
http://www.6bun.jp/white/
Yoichi Watanabe
A photographer who travels the snowy mountains of the world to create and publish photographs.
He lives in Niseko, Hokkaido, and continues to capture and photograph the climate and lifestyle of snow country, mainly ski photography.
Since 2015, he has published Stuben Magazine, introducing snow culture from around the world from a unique perspective. In February 2020, he published his photo book "Yuki The Essence of the Winter Forest".